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Canelo is Still Mostly the Canelo That We Remember, but GGG is Another Story

Canelo is Still Mostly the Canelo That We Remember, but GGG is Another Story
A fat and seemingly overly optimistic George Foreman, upon launching a boxing comeback after 10 years away from the ring and at the preposterously advanced age of 40, uttered the words that have since become the mantra of all formerly great fighters who are resolute in their conviction that the best of themselves is not necessarily restricted to memories of what used to be.
“The age of 40 is not a death sentence,” Big George proclaimed to much skepticism from the media, and damn if he didn’t speak that pugilistic unlikelihood to truth when, at 45, he knocked out the much-younger and favored Michael Moorer in the 10th round on Nov. 5, 1994, to ascend to the heavyweight championship of the world for a second time.
But Father Time is the unseen opponent all fighters who have extended their fighting lives to their 40th birthday and beyond eventually discover is less conquerable than flesh-and-blood opponents. And so it would appear to be the case for future Hall of Famer Gennadiy “GGG” Golovkin, whose unanimous-decision loss to Canelo Alvarez in their third matchup Saturday night in Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena might have conveyed more about what the future holds for him than it did for the victor.
“I have a lot left. I have a great plan, a lot of appointments. Remember, I’m still champion at 160,” insisted Golovkin (42-2-1, 37 KOs) after the longtime middleweight champion from Kazakhstan, in his super middleweight debut and possibly final ring appearance in that division, failed to annex Alvarez’s WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO 168-pound titles in a fight that did not appear to be nearly as close as the scorecards indicated. Give Golovkin credit for a too-little, too-late rally in the later rounds, but the 115-113 tallies for Alvarez (from judges Steve Weisfeld and David Sutherland) and 116-112 (Dave Moretti) seemed more than a tad generous.
Punch statistics furnished by CompuBox are another numerical means of ascertaining who did what, and although Canelo only out-landed GGG by 130 to 120, he connected with 85 power punches to just 46 for Golovkin, whose reputation had been made through a succession of brutal knockouts, 23 straight in one elongated stretch, 18 of which came in world championship fights. No one would have, or should have, yelped in surprise had the tallies read by ring announcer David Diamonte been 117-111 (as I had it) or even 118-110 for Canelo, whose bid to move closer to his status as the sport’s pound-for-pound best, which he relinquished as the result of the transfer of his WBA (super) light heavyweight belt on a clear points loss to Dmitry Bivol on May 7 of this year, might have received only a moderate boost. That the Mexican superstar won so convincingly is especially noteworthy in light of the revelation that he had fought with a tear in the cartilage of his left wrist, which might require surgery.
“I can’t hold a glass,” Alvarez, still arguably in his prime at 32, said of his achy hand. “It’s really bad. But I’m a warrior.”
Trilogies have a special place in boxing history, with good reason. Ali-Frazier, Gatti-Ward, Bowe-Holyfield, Fury-Wilder, Barrera-Morales and similar three-act passion plays have been so compelling that each installment is memorialized as part of a more historically relevant whole. But Canelo-GGG III concluded not with an exclamation point, but with a simple period. It was a lesser version of the two preceding segments, the first being a disputed split draw on Sept. 16, 2017 (many ringside reporters thought Golovkin deserved to win what had been a very competitive bout) and a similarly engrossing do-over on Sept. 15, 2018, in which Alvarez came away with a majority-decision win.
The second fight was delayed after Alvarez twice tested positive for the banned substance clenbuterol, which he claimed was the result of ingesting contaminated Mexican beef, resulting in a six-month suspension handed down by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Golovkin disputed that ascertainment, unequivocally stating his opinion that Canelo was a cheater. That led to both men developing harsh feelings toward the other, with Alvarez going so far as to say he “hated” GGG and would make him wait, possibly forever, for the third meeting he so obviously wanted. Thus was Saturday’s archrivalry-concluding showdown left to simmer on the back burner for four years, which now would seem to have had a more deleterious effect on GGG.
But that does not detract from what Golovkin brought to the table when he was blasting his way through the middleweight division as few champions have, matching Bernard Hopkins’ record of 20 successful defenses along the way. If historians want to place Sugar Ray Robinson, Carlos Monzon, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Hopkins higher based on quality of opposition, fine, but there can be no argument that the manner in which GGG starched his lengthening list of victims was highly impressive.
Longtime HBO blow-by-blow announcer Jim Lampley several years ago paid Golovkin a massive compliment when he called him the “most consistently hard puncher” he had seen over an extended period, more so than even the vaunted likes of Foreman, Mike Tyson, Wladimir Klitschko, Thomas Hearns and Julian Jackson.
“I think it’s more interesting when somebody has consistent punching power over the course of a long career in a weight class the way Gennadiy did,” Lamps commented. “The fact he weighed in hundreds of times as an amateur and a profession at the same weight, 160 pounds, makes the retention of his punching power exciting, not to mention some of the cartoon-style knockouts he produced.”
If he truly intends to remain active as a fighter, even if only a facsimile of his battering-ram best, it is entirely possible that Golovkin can remain a factor in his preferred comfort zone of middleweight for a couple of more years. Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Jaime Munguia, Chris Eubank Jr. and Carlos Adames are all in that division, and there is always the possibility that junior middles Jermell Charlo, Brian Castano, Sebastian Fundora and Tim Tszyu could move up. If fans of GGG close their eyes and imagine a best-case scenario for him moving forward, it might be for him to replicate what Hopkins did after the second of his back-to-back losses to Jermain Taylor (the first of which was at age 40), which was to move to another weight class (light heavyweight), win a world there twice and fight on for another 12 years. If it happened once, hey, maybe it could happen again.
The options for Alvarez are even more expansive. He has been a world champion at 154, 160, 168 and 175 pounds and is not averse to going wherever the biggest, highest-paying and most-legacy-enhancing fights are. He has professed to want another shot at Bivol (20-0, 11 KOs), should he get past his Nov. 5 clash with Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez (44-0, 30 KOs), which some would say is inadvisable the way their first meeting went, or he can remain at super middle and throw hands with the formidable David Benavidez (26-0, 23 KOs), arguably an even more attractive pairing. Unlike Golovkin, however, Canelo can’t afford any more hints of slippage; he has been to the top of the P4P mountain and wants to enjoy that vista again, and for a long time.
Photo credit: Al Applerose
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.
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Arne’s Almanac: The First BWAA Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.
The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.
In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.
The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:
New York Times
New York News
New York World
New York Sun
New York Journal
New York Post
New York Mirror
New York Telegram
New York Graphic
New York Herald Tribune
Brooklyn Eagle
Brooklyn Times
Brooklyn Standard Union
Brooklyn Citizen
Bronx Home News
This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.
Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.
The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.
Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)
Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.
Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.
There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.
In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.
There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.
The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.
Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.
The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.
The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.
Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.
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Gabriela Fundora KOs Marilyn Badillo and Perez Upsets Conwell in Oceanside

It was just a numbers game for Gabriela Fundora and despite Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo’s elusive tactics it took the champion one punch to end the fight and retain her undisputed flyweight world title by knockout on Saturday.
Will it be her last flyweight defense?
Though Fundora (16-0, 8 KOs) fired dozens of misses, a single punch found Badillo (19-1-1, 3 KOs) and ended her undefeated career and first attempt at a world title at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California.
Fundora, however, proves unbeatable at flyweight.
The champion entered the arena as the headliner for the Golden Boy Promotion show and stepped through the ropes with every physical advantage possible, including power.
Mexico’s Badillo was a midget compared to Fundora but proved to be as elusive as a butterfly in a menagerie for the first six rounds. As the six-inch taller Fundora connected on one punch for every dozen thrown, that single punch was a deadly reminder.
Badillo tried ducking low and slipping to the left while countering with slashing uppercuts, she found little success. She did find the body a solid target but the blows proved to be useless. And when Badillo clinched, that proved more erroneous as Fundora belted her rapidly during the tie-ups.
“She was kind of doing her ducking thing,” said Fundora describing Badillo’s defensive tactics. “I just put the pressure on. It was just like a train. We didn’t give her that break.”
The Mexican fighter tried valiantly with various maneuvers. None proved even slightly successful. Fundora remained poised and under control as she stalked the challenger.
In the seventh round Badillo seemed to take a stand and try to slug it out with Fundora. She quickly was lit up by rapid left crosses and down she went at 1:44 of the seventh round. The Mexican fighter’s corner wisely waved off the fight and referee Rudy Barragan stopped the fight and held the dazed Badillo upright.
Once again Fundora remained champion by knockout. The only question now is will she move up to super flyweight or bantamweight to challenge the bigger girls.
Perez Beats Conwell.
Mexico’s Jorge “Chino” Perez (33-4, 26 KOs) upset Charles Conwell (21-1, 15 KOs) to win by split decision after 12 rounds in their super welterweight showdown.
It was a match that paired two hard-hitting fighters whose ledgers brimmed with knockouts, but neither was able to score a knockdown against each other.
Neither fighter moved backward. It was full steam ahead with Conwell proving successful to the body and head with left hooks and Perez connecting with rights to the head and body. It was difficult to differentiate the winner.
Though Conwell seemed to be the superior defensive fighter and more accurate, two judges preferred Perez’s busier style. They gave the fight to Perez by 115-113 scores with the dissenter favoring Conwell by the same margin.
It was Conwell’s first pro loss. Maybe it will open doors for more opportunities.
Other Bouts
Tristan Kalkreuth (15-1) managed to pass a serious heat check by unanimous decision against former contender Felix Valera (24-8) after a 10-round back-and-forth heavyweight fight.
It was very close.
Kalkreuth is one of those fighters that possess all the physical tools including youth and size but never seems to be able to show it. Once again he edged past another foe but at least this time he faced an experienced fighter in Valera.
Valera had his moments especially in the middle of the 10-round fight but slowed down during the last three rounds.
One major asset for Kalkreuth was his chin. He got caught but still motored past the clever Valera. After 10 rounds two judges saw it 99-91 and one other judge 97-93 all for Kalkreuth.
Highly-rated prospect Ruslan Abdullaev (2-0) blasted past dangerous Jino Rodrigo (13- 5-2) in an eight round super lightweight fight. He nearly stopped the very tough Rodrigo in the last two rounds and won by unanimous decision.
Abdullaev is trained by Joel and Antonio Diaz in Indio.
Bakersfield prospect Joel Iriarte (7-0, 7 KOs) needed only 1:44 to knock out Puerto Rico’s Marcos Jimenez (25-12) in a welterweight bout.
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‘Krusher’ Kovalev Exits on a Winning Note: TKOs Artur Mann in his ‘Farewell Fight’

At his peak, former three-time world light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev ranked high on everyone’s pound-for-pound list. Now 42 years old – he turned 42 earlier this month – Kovalev has been largely inactive in recent years, but last night he returned to the ring in his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia, and rose to the occasion in what was billed as his farewell fight, stopping Artur Mann in the seventh frame.
Kovalev hit his peak during his first run as a world title-holder. He was 30-0-1 (26 KOs) entering first match with Andre Ward, a mark that included a 9-0 mark in world title fights. The only blemish on his record was a draw that could have been ruled a no-contest (journeyman Grover Young was unfit to continue after Kovalev knocked down in the second round what with was deemed an illegal rabbit punch). Among those nine wins were two stoppages of dangerous Haitian-Canadian campaigner Jean Pascal and a 12-round shutout over Bernard Hopkins.
Kovalev’s stature was not diminished by his loss to the undefeated Ward. All three judges had it 114-113, but the general feeling among the ringside press was that Sergey nicked it.
The rematch was also somewhat controversial. Referee Tony Weeks, who halted the match in the eighth stanza with Kovalev sitting on the lower strand of ropes, was accused of letting Ward get away with a series of low blows, including the first punch of a three-punch series of body shots that culminated in the stoppage. Sergey was wobbled by a punch to the head earlier in the round and was showing signs of fatigue, but he was still in the fight. Respected judge Steve Weisfeld had him up by three points through the completed rounds.
Sergey Kovalev was never the same after his second loss to Andre Ward, albeit he recaptured a piece of the 175-pound title twice, demolishing Vyacheslav Shabranskyy for the vacant WBO belt after Ward announced his retirement and then avenging a loss to Eleider Alvarez (TKO by 7) with a comprehensive win on points in their rematch.
Kovalev’s days as a title-holder ended on Nov. 2, 2019 when Canelo Alvarez, moving up two weight classes to pursue a title in a fourth weight division, stopped him in the 11th round, terminating what had been a relatively even fight with a hellacious left-right combination that left Krusher so discombobulated that a count was superfluous.
That fight went head-to-head with a UFC fight in New York City. DAZN, to their everlasting discredit, opted to delay the start of Canelo-Kovalev until the main event of the UFC fight was finished. The delay lasted more than an hour and Kovalev would say that he lost his psychological edge during the wait.
Kovalev had two fights in the cruiserweight class between his setback to Canelo and last night’s presumptive swan song. He outpointed Tervel Pulev in Los Angeles and lost a 10-round decision to unheralded Robin Sirwan Safar in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Artur Mann, a former world title challenger – he was stopped in three rounds by Mairis Briedis in 2021 when Briedis was recognized as the top cruiserweight in the world – was unexceptional, but the 34-year-old German, born in Kazakhstan, wasn’t chopped liver either, and Kovalev’s stoppage of him will redound well to the Russian when he becomes eligible for the Boxing Hall of Fame.
Krusher almost ended the fight in the second round. He knocked Mann down hard with a short left hand and seemingly scored another knockdown before the round was over (but it was ruled a slip). Mann barely survived the round.
In the next round, a punch left Mann with a bad cut on his right eyelid, but the German came to fight and rounds three, four and five were competitive.
Kovalev had a good sixth round although there were indications that he was tiring. But in the seventh he got a second wind and unleashed a right-left combination that rolled back the clock to the days when he was one of the sport’s most feared punchers. Mann went down hard and as he staggered to his feet, his corner signaled that the fight should be stopped and the referee complied. The official time was 0:49 of round seven. It was the 30th KO for Kovalev who advanced his record to 36-5-1.
Addendum: History informs us that Farewell Fights have a habit of becoming redundant, by which we mean that boxers often get the itch to fight again after calling it quits. Have we seen the last of Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev? We woudn’t bet on it.
The complete Kovalev-Mann fight card was live-streamed on the Boxing News youtube channel.
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