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The Hauser Report: A Promoter’s Pro Debut

The phrase “pro debut” is often heard in conjunction with fighters. But promoters make pro debuts too. On October 13 at Sony Hall in the heart of Times Square in New York, Larry Goldberg made his pro debut.
Goldberg, age 45, grew up in and around Atlantic City where he fell in love with boxing. He has an internet-marketing background and, in 1997, founded BoxingInsider.com. In the past, he’d promoted amateur fight cards. Now he was going pro.
If Goldberg’s pro debut had been in Montana or Kansas, it might have been similar to his amateur experiences. But it was in New York. Promoting a professional fight card under the best of circumstances is like herding twenty cats across a football field while a game is in progress. When promoting in New York, think fifty cats.
The New York State Athletic Commission has more rigorous protocols for promoters than any other state. For example, the fighter medical insurance required in New York costs $1,645 per bout. That’s $9,870 for a six-bout card. Line item costs such as hotel rooms for fighters and their teams are also higher in New York than in other jurisdictions.
Virtually everyone wants something for free when dealing with a promoter. Promoting a fight card can be analogous to planning a six-figure wedding on a five-figure budget.
“It’s my first show,” Goldberg acknowledged during fight week. “There’s so much to do. I’m learning and I’m making some mistakes. I’ll lose some money; I hope not too much. But it’s a start.”
Sony Hall is a difficult venue for a boxing promotion. Finding space for changing rooms, medical examinations, and other requisite areas is a task unto itself. Because of the building’s configuration, it costs three times more than the norm to bring the ring in and out.
Goldberg was promoting the October 13 event in association with DiBella Entertainment.
“Larry knows that he can’t make money in Sony Hall,” Lou DiBella (who was in Australia for Devin Haney vs. George Kambosos) noted. “But he’s learning the ropes. It’s like a graduate course in promoting. And it costs money to get an education.”
One might be forgiven for likening Goldberg’s “education” to a diploma from Trump University. The tuition is high, often without much hope of a meaningful return. Ultimately, boxing maven Eric Bottjer was brought in to help the promotion with compliance issues and other matters.
“Eric was a life-saver,” Larry said afterward. “I don’t want to think about what might have happened without him.”
Goldberg hired his own production team and arranged for the fights to be streamed live on BXNG TV with Randy Gordon and Gerry Cooney handling the commentary. He hired a roundcard girl on the morning of the fights. Matt Competello (who Larry has worked with in the amateurs) was brought in as the ring announcer.
The New York State Athletic Commission had limited the number of fights that would be allowed on the card to six because of the cramped quarters in the back of the house. Ticket prices ranged from $102 to $325.
One fight fell out when a fighter who, Goldberg says, agreed to a $3,000 purse refused to get on a plane and come to New York unless his purse was increased to $5,000. That left Larry with only five fights. And he had to pay the $1,645 insurance fee for the cancelled fight because it had already been bonded.
Heather Hardy was Goldberg’s headline attraction and had gone beyond the role of being a fighter to help enormously in putting together the pieces of the promotion. Several opponents for Heather fell out. And for good measure, it rained on fight night which threatened to put a damper on last-minute ticket sales.
Dave McWater (the 2020 BWAA “manager of the year”) manages Ivan Golub who was in the second bout of the evening. Sitting in Sony Hall before the fights began, McWater reminisced about his own experience as a promoter.
“Years ago,” McWater recalled, “I backed Don Elbaum on a show in Connecticut. Don assured me that we’d sell 5,000 tickets. About an hour before the first fight, I went to the box office and we’d sold 259. After that, I decided I’d be better off managing than promoting.”
Then the gods smiled on Goldberg. Surprisingly, walk-up sales were good. Sony Hall nearly sold out. The venue was jammed. The seating was chaotic with close quarters everywhere from ringside to the standing room area by the bar. But all of the sightlines were good.
The ring canvas was gray, not powder blue, and the ring ropes were black. The overhead lights were dimmer than the norm. All of that when combined with the unusually close quarters, gave the evening an old-time fight-club vibe.
The fights moved smoothly from one to the next without the long delays occasioned by the demands of bigtime television.
Fight #1 saw Petros Ananyan (16-3-2, 7 KOs) face off against Paulo Cesar Galdino (12-6, 8 KOs) in a super-lightweight contest. Neither man had much defense and both men got hit a lot. But Ananyan hit harder and Cesar got hit more often leading to a sixth-round stoppage. The fight was notable because Freddie Roach was in Ananyan’s corner and the venue was set up in a way that waiters with plates full of chicken tenders and fried calamari kept walking in front of Roach while rounds were going on. “I did wonder what the f*** was going on,” Freddie said afterward.
Ivan Golub (20-1, 15 KOs) vs. Wesley Tucker (15-3, 9 KOs, 1 KO by) was the second bout. Golub was arguably the most accomplished fighter on the card. But the big ticket sellers were Heather Hardy, Nadim Salloum and Andy Dominguez Velasquez, so the last three slots were reserved for them.
Tucker is a club fighter. During the preceding five-and-a-half years. he’d lost three times to other club fighters and won once. In round two, he scored a knockdown when he tagged Golub and Ivan’s gloves touched the canvas. But then Wesley tired and morphed into a human punching bag. His corner stopped the carnage after four rounds.
In fight #3, Andy Dominguez Velasquez (7-0-0, 6 KOs), a good flyweight prospect, knocked down Ricardo Caraballo (7-1, 2 KOs) two minutes into the first stanza. Ricardo rose on wobbly legs, and virtually everyone in the arena except Sparkle Lee could see that he was in no condition to continue. Unfortunately, Lee was refereeing the fight. So, Caraballo took more unnecessary concussive blows to the head before he was knocked down again and the fight ended.
Fight #4 featured Nadim Salloum (8-1, 3 KOs) vs. Jorge Leandro Capozucco (4-0, 3 KOs). Salloum, age 28, was born in Lebanon and now lives in Brooklyn. He’s a ticket-seller, having developed a significant following in the Lebanese-American community. His ring skills aren’t as good as his marketing. That said, Leandro only had one punch – an arcing overhand right that landed more often than it should have because Salloum has a porous defense. But Salloum also had a more varied arsenal and more power than Leandro. Referee Steve Willis stopped the fight in round six.
Then it was time for the main event – Heather Hardy (22-2, 4 KOs) vs Calista Silgado (20-15-3, 15 KOs, 3 KOs by). Hardy (who moved from 126 to 135 pounds last year) had lost her last two outings by decision against Amanda Serrano and Jessica Camara and hadn’t won a boxing match since 2018. Silgado was competing at 118 pounds as recently as May of this year and had lost four of her most recent five fights. Her one victory during that stretch came against a woman who has had two fights in her entire ring career and been knocked out in both of them.
Silgado had flown to New York from Miami and arrived at 11:30 on Tuesday night. She weighed in on Wednesday, fought on Thursday, and flew back to Miami on a 5:00 AM Friday flight. Such is the life of a B-side fighter.
Hardy-Silgado was scheduled for six two-minute rounds. Once the fight began, it was clear that Heather’s reflexes have slowed noticeably since her prime years. Calista looked old and tired and had powder-puff fists. It wasn’t a hard fight to score. Two judges appropriately ruled 58-56 in Hardy’s favor. One judge gave Heather all six rounds and shouldn’t be assigned to judge again absent extensive retraining.
Hardy is forty years old. Her defense has always been suspect. She’s tough and has a fighting spirit. But that alone doesn’t cut it in boxing, particularly at age forty. The punches add up for women fighters as inexorably as they do for men. Now would be a good time for Heather to stop fighting.
At evening’s end, Goldberg’s father (who was at the show) told him, “Congratulations! This was your second bar mitzvah.”
So . . . Where does Larry go from here?
He came out of the promotion with his honor and reputation intact. He lost some money but not as much as he feared he might.
“I’ll be able to sleep well tonight for the first time in two months,” Goldberg said when the show was over. “I can’t believe this worked out as well as it did because it could have gone really bad. I was petrified that things out of my control would go wrong. I’ve got a lot to digest. But now that I know how the sausage is made, it should be easier for me next time. Next time, I’ll know how to save money on hotel rooms and airfare and all the other things that add up. I’d like to promote at Sony Hall again. I think I can make the numbers work and turn a profit there. I’d like to promote a fight card in Atlantic City. That’s one of my goals. Maybe I’ll turn Boxing Insider into a streaming platform. There’s so much to think about.”
Meanwhile, give Goldberg credit for loving boxing and putting his money where his heart is.
Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – In the Inner Sanctum: Behind the Scenes at Big Fights – was just published by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
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“Breadman” Edwards: An Unlikely Boxing Coach with a Panoramic View of the Sport

Stephen “Breadman” Edwards’ first fighter won a world title. That may be some sort of record.
It’s true. Edwards had never trained a fighter, amateur or pro, before taking on professional novice Julian “J Rock” Williams. On May 11, 2019, Williams wrested the IBF 154-pound world title from Jarrett Hurd. The bout, a lusty skirmish, was in Fairfax, Virginia, near Hurd’s hometown in Maryland, and the previously undefeated Hurd had the crowd in his corner.
In boxing, Stephen Edwards wears two hats. He has a growing reputation as a boxing coach, a hat he will wear on Saturday, May 31, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas when the two fighters that he currently trains, super middleweight Caleb Plant and middleweight Kyrone Davis, display their wares on a show that will air on Amazon Prime Video. Plant, who needs no introduction, figures to have little trouble with his foe in a match conceived as an appetizer to a showdown with Jermall Charlo. Davis, coming off his career-best win, an upset of previously undefeated Elijah Garcia, is in tough against fast-rising Cuban prospect Yoenli Hernandez, a former world amateur champion.
Edwards’ other hat is that of a journalist. His byline appears at “Boxing Scene” in a column where he answers questions from readers.
It’s an eclectic bag of questions that Breadman addresses, ranging from his thoughts on an upcoming fight to his thoughts on one of the legendary prizefighters of olden days. Boxing fans, more so than fans of any other sport, enjoy hashing over fantasy fights between great fighters of different eras. Breadman is very good at this, which isn’t to suggest that his opinions are gospel, merely that he always has something provocative to add to the discourse. Like all good historians, he recognizes that the best history is revisionist history.
“Fighters are constantly mislabled,” he says. “Everyone talks about Joe Louis’s right hand. But if you study him you see that his left hook is every bit as good as his right hand and it’s more sneaky in terms of shock value when it lands.”
Stephen “Breadman” Edwards was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father died when he was three. His maternal grandfather, a Korean War veteran, filled the void. The man was a big boxing fan and the two would watch the fights together on the family television.
Edwards’ nickname dates to his early teen years when he was one of the best basketball players in his neighborhood. The derivation is the 1975 movie “Cornbread, Earl and Me,” starring Laurence Fishburne in his big screen debut. Future NBA All-Star Jamaal Wilkes, fresh out of UCLA, plays Cornbread, a standout high school basketball player who is mistakenly murdered by the police.
Coming out of high school, Breadman had to choose between an academic scholarship at Temple or an athletic scholarship at nearby Lincoln University. He chose the former, intending to major in criminal justice, but didn’t stay in college long. What followed were a succession of jobs including a stint as a city bus driver. To stay fit, he took to working out at the James Shuler Memorial Gym where he sparred with some of the regulars, but he never boxed competitively.
Over the years, Philadelphia has harbored some great boxing coaches. Among those of recent vintage, the names George Benton, Bouie Fisher, Nazeem Richardson, and Bozy Ennis come quickly to mind. Breadman names Richardson and West Coast trainer Virgil Hunter as the men that have influenced him the most.
We are all a product of our times, so it’s no surprise that the best decade of boxing, in Breadman’s estimation, was the 1980s. This was the era of the “Four Kings” with Sugar Ray Leonard arguably standing tallest.
Breadman was a big fan of Leonard and of Leonard’s three-time rival Roberto Duran. “I once purchased a DVD that had all of Roberto Duran’s title defenses on it,” says Edwards. “This was a back before the days of YouTube.”
But Edwards’ interest in the sport goes back much deeper than the 1980s. He recently weighed in on the “Pittsburgh Windmill” Harry Greb whose legend has grown in recent years to the point that some have come to place him above Sugar Ray Robinson on the list of the greatest of all time.
“Greb was a great fighter with a terrific resume, of that there is no doubt,” says Breadman, “but there is no video of him and no one alive ever saw him fight, so where does this train of thought come from?”
Edwards notes that in Harry Greb’s heyday, he wasn’t talked about in the papers as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. The boxing writers were partial to Benny Leonard who drew comparisons to the venerated Joe Gans.
Among active fighters, Breadman reserves his highest praise for Terence Crawford. “Body punching is a lost art,” he once wrote. “[Crawford] is a great body puncher who starts his knockouts with body punches, but those punches are so subtle they are not fully appreciated.”
If the opening line holds up, Crawford will enter the ring as the underdog when he opposes Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, who will enter the ring a few weeks shy of his 38th birthday, is actually the older fighter, older than Canelo by almost three full years (it doesn’t seem that way since the Mexican redhead has been in the public eye so much longer), and will theoretically be rusty as 13 months will have elapsed since his most recent fight.
Breadman discounts those variables. “Terence is older,” he says, “but has less wear and tear and never looks rusty after a long layoff.” That Crawford will win he has no doubt, an opinion he tweaked after Canelo’s performance against William Scull: “Canelo’s legs are not the same. Bud may even stop him now.”
Edwards has been with Caleb Plant for Plant’s last three fights. Their first collaboration produced a Knockout of the Year candidate. With one ferocious left hook, Plant sent Anthony Dirrell to dreamland. What followed were a 12-round setback to David Benavidez and a ninth-round stoppage of Trevor McCumby.
Breadman keeps a hectic schedule. From Monday through Friday, he’s at the DLX Gym in Las Vegas coaching Caleb Plant and Kyrone Davis. On weekends, he’s back in Philadelphia, checking in on his investment properties and, of greater importance, watching his kids play sports. His 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son are standout all-around athletes.
On those long flights, he has plenty of time to turn on his laptop and stream old fights or perhaps work on his next article. That’s assuming he can stay awake.
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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More
It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.
In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.
Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.
CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.
****
Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.
Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”
And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.
Joey Archer
Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer
Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.
Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)
Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.
Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.
In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.
When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.
Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.
May he rest in peace.
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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.
Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.
“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.
Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.
After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.
Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.
One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”
Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.
“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”
Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.
A real fight was happening.
Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.
Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.
In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.
“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”
Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.
In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.
“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”
Espinoza Wins
WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.
“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.
Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.
Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.
It was Espinoza’s third title defense.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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