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Paul vs. Silva: A Circus on Steroids or a Bonafide Athletic Competition?

Paul vs. Silva: A Circus on Steroids or a Bonafide Athletic Competition?
In 1958, RCA Records came out with a record album depicting then-23-year-old Elvis Presley, in a preposterous gold lame suit, entitled 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t be Wrong. OK, so the kid from Tupelo, Miss., could sing, but his rocket-to-the-moon rise in popularity as the king of rock ’n’ roll was particularly amazing considering that just a few years earlier he was a low-paid truck driver who counted himself fortunate to land an occasional gig shaking his hips at a Deep South county fair.
No one would yet dare to describe 25-year-old Jake “The Problem Child” Paul as a pugilistic equivalent of Presley, but there are certain numbers that suggest the YouTube icon from Cleveland already is encroaching on the fringes of late 1950s Elvis territory and pressing for more. By the spring of 2014, the younger of the two boxing Paul brothers – Logan is 27 — had amassed 5.3 million internet followers and two billion views on the discontinued Vine app. When he signed a multi-fight contract with Showtime in May 2021, Paul could boast of a whopping 20.4 million YouTube followers. There are future mortal-lock inductees into the International Boxing Hall of Fame who would just about sell their souls for that humongous a fan base, or even its smaller but continually expanding boxing subset, which is why everyone interested in the sport will be watching to see how Paul (officially 5-0 with four knockouts) fares in his Showtime pay-per-view bout ($59.95) with aging martial arts legend Anderson “Spider” Silva (3-1, 2 KOs) Saturday night at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Ariz. The eight-round cruiserweight main event will be staged under boxing rules.
As always, Paul, whose unapologetic and unrestrained demeanor outside the ring constitutes a significant part of his notoriety, pulled no punches with his remarks at a press conference to announce what figures to be his most difficult challenge in his bid to eventually be recognized as a legitimately skilled fighter and not just a sideshow curiosity.
“My previous opponents were all dickheads,” Paul said with the lack of subtlety that has marked his incursion into an arena in which flung expletives are commonplace. “Anderson Silva is the nicest guy in the world and we love him. If my opponent is a dickhead, I’m gonna treat him as a dickhead and beat his f—— ass. I think people have seen that side of me, but I respect this man. I’m still gonna knock him out, but respectfully knock him out.”
Paul’s low estimation of the boxing capabilities of his previous victims is entirely justified. Ali Eson Gib, former NBA player Nate Robinson, Ben Askren and Tyron Woodley all were making their pro debuts when they lost to the Problem Child, with Woodley coming back for a rematch in which he was knocked out in the sixth round. A murderers’ row it wasn’t. Silva, however, has sterling credentials; the Brazilian-born southpaw at one time was widely regarded as the best MMA fighter in the world, and his most obvious attribute during his heyday was his striking ability. If he nailed the other guy with a punch that landed flush, he likely was going down and out. But Silva is 47 now, and Paul is not the only foe he will be confronting when the opening bell rings. Age is the silent thief that comes in the night, siphoning bits and pieces from even a great champion’s compendium of positive attributes. Former middleweight and light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins can attest to that; he was just weeks shy of his 52nd birthday when he suffered the only loss inside the distance of his 28-year pro career, against 27-year-old Joe Smith Jr. on Dec. 17, 2016. B-Hop is absolutely certain that even a moderately younger and less-depleted version of himself would have defeated Smith, but no matter the outcome Saturday night he can’t compare his final ring appearance to a matchup he considers fraudulent.
“This is a total attempt to hoodwink the public,” sneered Hopkins who, like Paul, is temperamentally disinclined to tone down the chatter when his ire is up. “I do believe the boxing community is too smart to legitimize something like this. This fight is a circus on steroids.
“Showtime should be ashamed to promote this as a real event based on Jake Paul’s opponent. It’s the lowest of the low. Me and Joe Smith was a legitimate fight. Paul’s is not. This nonsense, this buffoonery, has got to stop.”
All right, that is one opinion. It is not the only one. Taking his turn at the figurative podium is Stephen Espinoza, president of Showtime Sports, whose company has long been involved in high-level boxing and, as of 2021 when it signed him to a multi-fight contract, the perhaps grand experiment that is Jake Paul. Maybe Paul throwing hands with the Anderson Silva of the here and now is not quite the acid test it might have been years ago, but it nonetheless stands as a major hurdle that must be cleared on Paul’s way to bigger and better things.
“The commitment that he made to us when we started into business with him is that he would progressively increase the risk with each fight. There’s no question he’s done that,” Espinoza said. “But to be completely candid, there were more than a few members of Jake’s team that were opposed to the Silva fight. This man is a legendary combat sports athlete with great striking ability who has already demonstrated a good amount of boxing skill.
“Look, I can be as much of a purist as anyone else in the sport, and I’ll confess I was initially a skeptic of the concept. But what converted me was, (a), watching his fights. It was apparent even in his early fights that Jake has a level of skill and enthusiasm that made me think that he could pull this off. Secondly, he has respect for the sport and the ambitions he has for the protection of fighters and expansion of the sport, even tutoring other fighters on how to use social media to their benefit.
“Clearly, he’s been interacting with his audience, learning from what they like. You don’t generate a fan base like his by accident. It’s calculated and part of a very intelligent plan. His fans are not people who picked up on a website six months ago and suddenly discovered him. He’s been gathering his supporters for more than a decade.”
Perhaps Espinoza is a visionary, part of a rare breed of soothsayers who recognize what the public wants before the masses want it, and caters to that need in its incubation stages. He recognizes past failures of similar ploys, such as when promoter Gary Shaw hitched his wagon to a menacing YouTube brawler named Kimbo Slice in an impossible quest to turn him into a heavyweight champion. But, hey, if something doesn’t work once or even twice, try, try again. The main requirement for a breakthrough is identifying just the right banner-carrier.
“I think Jake is a bit of a unicorn,” Espinoza continued. “He has the physical skill and talent, and the mental determination, to seriously undertake boxing and not as a fad or an attention-grabbing stunt. The usual procedure is to take a really talented, skilled boxer and make him popular, to make people care about him. This experiment is a little bit of the reverse. You take someone who already has a huge fan base, and also has certain physical abilities and athleticism, and make him into a serious boxer right in front of your eyes. I think it’s fascinating to watch.”
To his credit, Paul has been outspoken in his support of better pay and more recognition for boxers, especially previously underserved women boxers, and he has undeniably raised the profile of Amanda Serrano by having her appear on his cards. In doing so, there is mounting evidence he is drawing a younger demographic into the well of traditional boxing fans, a group that has been skewing older for some time.
“One of the questions at the start of this endeavor with Jake was, `Are these people just Jake Paul boxing fans, or can they become truly committed boxing fans? We’ve seen that question answered. These people coming in are becoming fans of the sport. I’ve seen it in Cleveland, a bunch of young kids clamoring for an autograph of a Puerto Rican female boxer (Serrano) who, as skilled as she is, largely toiled in obscurity for most of her career until Jake got more people interested in boxing.”
Espinoza also stresses that the investment in Jake Paul does not detract from the resources Showtime is putting and always has into the sport.
“Jake is not taking opportunities from anyone else,” Espinoza said. “Pay per view is all about eating what you kill. It’s not like we’re depleting our boxing budget and can’t put on three other championship fights. We’re able to do both, side by side, without compromising the long history of supporting championship-level fights that Showtime has been known for. That is not an either/or situation.”
So, what does the long view of Jake Paul look like? Maybe a quickie flameout, but maybe something far more intriguing. Maybe even as intriguing as it would have been had Elvis Presley, who played a boxer in 1962’s Kid Galahad, ditched his music career, took up the sweet science full-time and against all odds became a world champion. Elvis, who for years had dabbled in martial arts, did throw reasonably convincing overhand rights in that one, as Paul does now.
“Jake has the attributes to fight not just credible professional boxers, but contender-level and maybe even championship-level ones,” Espinoza said of the possible winning lottery ticket he hopes he has purchased. “Nothing would make him happier than in three years, five years, to look back and say, `No one thought I could do this. I’ve removed all questions about my boxing credibility.’ I think that’s the goal.”
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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A Paean to the Great Sportswriter Jimmy Cannon Who Passed Away 50 Years Ago This Week

“Of all his assignments,” said the renowned sportswriter Dave Anderson, “[Jimmy] Cannon appeared to enjoy boxing the most.”
Cannon would have sheepishly concurred. He dated his infatuation with boxing to 1919 when he stood outside a saloon listening to a man with a megaphone relay bulletins from the Dempsey-Willard fight in faraway Toledo. His father followed boxing as did all the Irishmen in his neighborhood. For him, an interest in the sport of boxing, he once wrote, was like a family heirloom. But it became a love-hate relationship. It was Jimmy Cannon, after all, who coined the phrase “boxing is the red light district of sports.”
This week marks the 50th anniversary of Jimmy Cannon’s death. He passed away at age 63 on Dec. 5, 1973, in his room at the residential hotel in mid-Manhattan where he made his home. In the realm of American sportswriters, there has never been a voice quite like him. He was “the hardest-boiled of the hard-drinking, hard-boiled school of sports writing,” wrote Darrell Simmons of the Atlanta Journal. One finds a glint of this in his summary of Sonny Liston’s first-round demolition of Albert Westphal in 1961: “Sonny Liston hit Albert Westphal like he was a cop.”
In his best columns, Jimmy Cannon was less a sportswriter than an urban poet. Here’s what he wrote about Archie Moore in 1955 after Moore trounced Bobo Olson to set up a match with Rocky Marciano: “Someone should write a song about Archie Moore who in the Polo Grounds knocked out Bobo Olson in three rounds…It should be a song that comes out of the backrooms of sloughed saloons on night-drowned streets in morning-worried parts of bad towns. The guy who writes this one must be a piano player who can be dignified when he picks a quarter out of the marsh of a sawdust floor.”
Prior to fighting in Madison Square Garden the previous year – his first appearance in that iconic boxing arena – Moore had roamed the globe in search of fights in a career that began in the Great Depression. Cannon was partial to boxers like Archie Moore, great ring artisans who toiled in obscurity, fighting for small purses –“moving-around money” in Cannon’s words — until the establishment could no longer ignore them.
Jimmy Cannon was born in Lower Manhattan. He left high school after one year to become a copy boy for the New York Daily News. In 1936, at age 26, the News sent him to cover the biggest news story of the day, the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping trial. While there he met Damon Runyon who would become a lifelong friend. At Runyon’s suggestion, he applied for a job as a sportswriter at the New York American, a Hearst paper, and was hired.
During World War II, he was a war correspondent in Europe embedded in Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army. When he returned from the war, he joined the New York Post and then, in 1959, the Journal-American which made him America’s highest-paid sportswriter at a purported salary of $1000 a week. His articles were syndicated and appeared in dozens of papers.
Cannon was very close to Joe Louis. He was the only reporter that Louis allowed in his hotel room on the morning of the Brown Bomber’s rematch with Max Schmeling. Louis, he wrote, “was a credit to his race, the human race.” It was his most-frequently-quoted line.
In an early story, Cannon named Sam Langford the best pound-for-pound fighter of all time. Later he joined with his colleagues on Press Row in naming Sugar Ray Robinson the greatest of the greats. As for the fellow who anointed himself “The Greatest,” Muhammad Ali, Cannon profoundly disliked him. He persisted in calling him Cassius Clay long after Ali had adopted his Muslim name.
It troubled Cannon that Ali was afforded an opportunity to fight for the title after only 19 pro fights. Ali’s poetry, he thought, was infantile. He abhorred Ali’s political views. And, truth be told, he didn’t like Ali because certain segments of society adored him. Cannon didn’t like non-conformists – hippies and anti-war protesters and such. When queried about his boyhood in Greenwich Village, he was quick to note that he lived there “when it was a decent neighborhood, before it became freaky.”
Cannon’s animus toward Ali spilled over into his opinion of Ali’s foil, the bombastic sportscaster Howard Cosell. “If Howard Cosell were a sport,” he wrote,” it would be roller derby.”
Cannon frequently filled his column with a series of one-liners published under the heading “Nobody Asked Me, But…” His wonderfully acerbic put-down of Cosell appeared in one of these columns. But one can’t read these columns today without cringing at some of his ruminations. He once wrote, “Any man is in trouble if he falls in love with a woman he can’t knock down with one punch.” If a newspaperman wrote those words today, he would be out of a job so fast it would make his head spin.
Similarly, his famous line about Joe Louis being a credit to the human race no longer resonates in the way that it once did. There is in its benevolence an air of racial prejudice.
Jimmy Cannon was a lifelong bachelor but in his younger days before he quit drinking cold turkey in 1948, he was quite the ladies man, often seen promenading showgirls around town. Like his pal Damon Runyon, he was a night owl. As the years passed, however, he became somewhat reclusive. The world passed him by when rock n’ roll came in, pushing aside the Tin Pan Alley crooners and torch singers that had kept him company at his favorite late-night haunts.
Cannon’s end days were tough. He suffered a stroke in 1971 as he was packing to go to the Kentucky Derby and spent most of his waking hours in his last two-plus years in a wheelchair. Fortunately, he could afford to hire a full-time attendant. In 2002, he was posthumously elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category.
Jimmy Cannon once said that he resented it when someone told him that his stuff was too good to be in a newspaper. It was demeaning to newspapers and he never wanted to be anything but a newspaperman. He didn’t always bring his “A” game and some of his stuff wouldn’t hold up well, but the man could write like blazes and the sportswriting profession lost a giant when he drew his last breath.
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Arne K. Lang is a recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling. His latest book, titled Clash of the Little Giants: George Dixon, Terry McGovern, and the Culture of Boxing in America, 1890-1910, was released by McFarland in September, 2022.
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Ryan “KingRy” Garcia Returns With a Bang; KOs Oscar Duarte

It was a different Ryan “KingRy” Garcia the world saw in defeating Mexico’s rugged Oscar Duarte, but it was that same deadly left hook counter that got the job done by knockout on Saturday.
Only the quick survive.
Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) used a variety of stances before luring knockout artist Duarte (26-1-1, 21 KOs) into his favorite punch before a sold-out crowd at Toyota Arena in Houston, Texas. That punch should be patented in gold.
It was somewhat advertised as knockout artist versus matinee idol, but those who know the sport knew that Garcia was a real puncher. But could he rebound from his loss earlier this year?
The answer was yes.
Garcia used a variety of styles beginning with a jab at a prescribed distance via his new trainer Derrick James. It allowed both Garcia and Duarte to gain footing and knock the cobwebs out of their reflexes. Garcia’s jab scored most of the early points during the first three rounds. He also snapped off some left hooks and rights.
“He was a strong fighter, took a strong punch,” said Garcia. “I hit him with some hard punches and he kept coming.”
Duarte, an ultra-pale Mexican from Durango, was cautious, knowing full well how many Garcia foes had underestimated the power behind his blows.
Slowly the muscular Mexican fighter began closing in with body shots and soon both fighters were locked in an inside battle. Garcia used a tucked-in shoulder style while Duarte pounded the body, back of the head and in the back causing the referee to warn for the illegal punches twice.
Still, Duarte had finally managed to punch Garcia with multiple shots for several rounds.
Around the sixth round Garcia was advised by his new trainer to begin jabbing and moving. It forced Duarte out of his rhythm as he was unable to punch without planting his feet. Suddenly, the momentum had reversed again and Duarte looked less dangerous.
“I had to slow his momentum down. That softened him up,” said Garcia about using that change in style to change Duarte’s pressure attack. “Shout out to Derrick James.”
Boos began cascading from the crowd but Garcia was on a roll and had definitely regained the advantage. A quick five-punch combination rocked Duarte though not all landed. The danger made the Mexican pause.
In the eighth round Duarte knew he had to take back the momentum and charged even harder. In one lickety-split second a near invisible counter left hook connected on Duarte’s temple and he stumbled like a drunken soldier on liberty in Honolulu. Garcia quickly followed up with rights and uppercuts as Duarte had a look of terror as his legs failed to maintain stability. Down he went for the count.
Duarte was counted out by referee James Green at 2:51 of the eighth round as Garcia watched from the other side of the ring.
“I started opening up my legs a little bit to open up the shot,” explained Garcia. “When I hurt somebody that hard, I just keep cracking them. I hurt him with a counter left hook.”
The weapon of champions.
Garcia’s victory returns him back to the forefront as one of boxing’s biggest gate attractions. A list of potential foes is his to dissect and choose.
“I’m just ready to continue to my ascent to be a champion at 140,” Garcia said.
It was a tranquil end after such a tumultuous last three days.
Other Bouts
Floyd Schofield (16-0, 12 KOs) blitzed Mexico’s Ricardo “Not Finito” Lopez (17-8-3) with a four knockdown blowout that left fans mesmerized and pleased with the fighter from Austin, Texas.
Schofield immediately shot out quick jabs and then a lightning four-punch combination that delivered Lopez to the canvas wondering what had happened. He got up. Then Scholfield moved in with a jab and crisp left hook and down went Lopez like a dunked basketball bouncing.
At this point it seemed the fight might stop. But it proceeded and Schofield unleashed another quick combo that sent Lopez down though he did try to punch back. It was getting monotonous. Lopez got up and then was met with another rapid fire five- or six-punch combination. Lopez was down for the fourth time and the referee stopped the devastation.
“I appreciate him risking his life,” said Schofield of his victim.
In a middleweight clash Shane Mosley Jr. (21-4, 12 KOs) out-worked Joshua Conley (17-6-1, 11 KOs) for five rounds before stopping the San Bernardino fighter at 1:51 of the sixth round. It was Mosley’s second consecutive knockout and fourth straight win.
Mosley continues to improve in every fight and again moves up the middleweight rankings.
Super middleweight prospect Darius Fulghum (9-0, 9 KOs) of Houston remained undefeated and kept his knockout string intact with a second round pounding and stoppage over Pachino Hill (8-5-1) in 56 seconds of that round.
Photo credit: Golden Boy Promotions
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Jordan Gill TKOs Michael Conlan Who May Have Reached the End of the Road

Fighting on his home turf, two-time Olympian Michael Conlan was an 8/1 favorite over Jordan Gill tonight in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Had he won, Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn was eyeing a rematch for Conlan with Leigh Wood. Their March 2022 rumble in Nottingham was a popular pick for the Fight of the Year. But the 29-year-old Gill, a Cambridgeshire man, rendered that discussion moot with a seventh-round stoppage. It was Conlan’s third loss inside the distance in the last 18 months and he would be wise to call it a day. His punch resistance is plainly not what it once was.
It was with considerable fanfare that Conlan cast his lot with Top Rank coming out of the amateur ranks. Tonight was his first assignment for Matchroom and his first fight at 130 pounds after coming up short in two world featherweight title fights. And he almost didn’t make it past the second round. Gill had him on the canvas in the opening minute of round two compliments of a left hook and stunned him late in the round with a right hand that left him on unsteady legs.
He survived the round and for a fleeting moment in the sixth frame it appeared that he had reversed Gill’s momentum. But Gill took charge again in the next stanza, trapping Conlan in the corner and unloading a fusillade of punches that forced referee Howard Foster to waive it off, much to the great dismay of the crowd. The official time was 1:09 of round seven.
Released by Top Rank, Conlan trained for this fight in Miami, Florida, under Pedro Diaz, best known for rejuvenating the career of Miguel Cotto. But the switch in trainer and in promoter made no difference as Conlan, who won his first amateur title at age 11, was damaged goods before he entered the ring. It was a career-defining victory for Jordan Gill (28-2-1, 9 KOs) who was not known as a big puncher and was returning to the ring after being stopped by Kiko Martinez 13 months ago in his previous start.
Semi-wind-up
In the “Battle of Belfast,” undefeated welterweight Lewis Crocker seized control in the opening round and went on to win a lopsided decision over intra-city rival Tyrone McKenna (23-4-1). Two of the judges gave Crocker every round and the other had it 98-92, but yet this was entertaining fight in spurts. McKenna had more fans in the building, but Crocker, seven years younger at age 26, went to post a 7/2 favorite and youth was served.
Other Bouts of Note
Belfast super welterweight Caoimhin Agyarko, who overcame a near-fatal mugging at age 20, advanced to 14-0 (7) with a 10-round split decision over Troy Williamson (20-2-1). The judges had it 98-92 and 97-93 for Agyarko with a dissenter submitting a curious 96-94 score for the 31-year-old Williamson who wasn’t able to exploit his advantages in height and reach.
Sean McComb, a 31-year-old Belfast southpaw, scored what was arguably the best win of his career with a 10-round beat-down of longtime sparring partner Sam Maxwell. Two of the judges gave McComb every round and the other had it 99-88. McComb, who has an interesting nickname, “The Public Nuisance, successfully defended his WBO European super welterweight strap while elevating his record to 18-1 (6). The fading, 35-year-old Maxwell, a former BBBofC British title-holder, lost for third time in his last four starts after winning his first 16 pro fights.
Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom
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