Rest In Peace Ken Buchanan

Published

1 year ago

April 1, 2023

We don’t get many great ones in Scotland. Ken Buchanan, who was confirmed to have died today, was one of them, having held the lightweight championship of the world in the highly competitive era of the 1970s, losing it to perhaps the finest champion of them all in the shape of Roberto Duran – and in questionable circumstances at that.

The temptation is to tell the wonderful story of Ken Buchanan in three fights, and I will succumb to that temptation, saying in addition only that the determination and dignity that Buchanan held in his difficult later years impressed me almost as much as his wonderful fighting career. That he did great things in tartan shorts often despite of and not because of a country that failed to support him as richly as he deserved. That the British Boxing Board of Control’s failure to recognise him as world champion when literally the whole of the rest of the boxing universe did is the most shameful decision in the history of that storied organisation. Ken had nothing like the financial, administrative, promotional, and sometimes fistic help that he should have had. Buchanan, perhaps more than any of the great British fighters, achieved what he achieved alone.

That is why we find Buchanan at his mother’s funeral in the late 1960s essentially retired from the sport before he has even been tested. Buchanan was not a very Scottish fighter. He didn’t wade in, workmanlike, “honest”, aggressive; that was his lightweight rival, another fine Scottish fighter named Jim Watt, but it was not Ken. Ken boxed with grace and flamboyance, chose distance, and controlled it, he made superfluous moves and eschewed economy. The style hid iron. Buchanan was stopped just once and that loss had absolutely nothing to do with his chin, as we shall see. Motivated by his remembrance of his mother’s belief that he was made to do something in the sport of boxing, he set out once again in search of greatness. Almost immediately he was robbed in his attempt to win the European lightweight championship from Miguel Velazquez, out in Spain. The great Scottish sportswriter Hugh McIlvanney wryly noted that Buchanan would have had to have produced a death certificate for the Scotsman to get something out of a fight he clearly deserved to win.

Throughout Ken’s career, money men, among them the top British promoter Bobby Neil, tried to change his style, turn him into a workman’s puncher, but Ken just calmly turned them away, choosing his moves based upon freedom rather than cash. This is what made the fast turnaround after the Velazquez debacle so fascinating to me. Buchanan was essentially waiting for a stay-busy fight after winning the British title when he was called directly by Jack Solomons, probably the best-connected promoter and fixer in the country at that time.

“How would you like to fight for the world title you Scots git?” was Jack’s opening gambit; Ken thought that Jack had called him up as a joke, promoted by his father, Ken’s constant companion but a man fond of a joke. Jack explained clearly – the people who handled world champion Ismael Laguna were after a soft touch; a stand-up boxer who wouldn’t give Laguna any trouble, a “patsy” in the parlance of the time. Buchanan was furious.

“A patsy? Is that what they think of me in America? Get me the fight Jack and I’ll show these people what us Scottish patsies are like.”

Buchanan’s date with destiny was set for September 26, 1970 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. To further discomfort the Scotsman the fight would be fought at 2pm with temperatures soaring to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. “I knew there was no promoter in Britain ready to put up money for me to have a shot at the title,” he remembered in his 2000 biography The Tartan Legend, “so I’d have to go for this in a big way.”

The champion, Ismael Laguna, was a wonderful fighter. In 1965 he had defeated the mighty Carlos Ortiz in a narrow decision that must be seen to be believed. Laguna inverted his combinations, turned square against the lethal Ortiz to lead with his right, a baffling, extraordinary execution. It remains one of the finest maverick performances I’ve ever seen against a genuine all-time great and although Ortiz avenged himself and reclaimed his title, when Ortiz was out of the picture Laguna once again rose to the top. Buchanan and his father developed an audacious plan that only another maverick could conceive of: they would travel 4,000 miles from home and outbox this man to a 15-round decision.

Buchanan, in many ways, was ahead of his time and that he was undertaking sprints as interval training in the build-up to the San Juan contest may have been the single most important factor (outside of his brilliance) in winning that fight. Bathed in sweat and “unable to fill my lungs with air” Ken battled the oppressive heat as keenly as he did his opposition in the ring. This training mirrored Ken’s style in the ring – movement, control of the distance, then lengthy combination punching or a period of infighting under maximum commitment, then back on his toes. Almost as important was may have been the shuffling of the officials prompted by Ken’s manager, Eddie Thomas, who had heard that a judge and referee had been imported by Laguna’s team for the occasion.

Ken boxed early and was perhaps out-pecked – he stepped in to provide pressure through eight and the fight was balanced on a knife-edge and remained there through twelve. What really made the difference in this fight was not Ken’s skills and quickness and what is perhaps the most cultured left hand in the history of British boxing, but his decision in the championship rounds to attack. “By the twelfth round we are both tired. Really lead-weight tired. But Laguna won’t give in…I decide to change my tactics. I decide to go for him.”

It was just enough. Ken Buchanan became the new lightweight champion of the world by split decision, both his eyes closed and “at the limit of [his] endurance.”

Buchanan fought his first defence in February of 1971, outpointing Ruben Navarro in LA and fought his second and last defence in a rematch against Laguna. Made in New York, this battle was every bit as torrid as the first, a savage cut to his left eye hampering him throughout and forcing an adjustment that is every bit as much a part of Buchanan’s legend for me as his forthcoming meeting with Roberto Duran. His legendary jab hampered by that damage to the left eye, Buchanan fought squarer, just as Laguna had against Ortiz all those years ago, the injury forcing him in to what McIlvanney called the “slugger’s stance.” I’ll bow to his summary of this fight:

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“Most boxers, faced with the demand for such an adjustment, would make a respectable lunge at it for a few minutes, then sag into resignation. The Scottish world champion, whose blindingly sudden and confusingly flexible left jab is not only his most telling weapon but the triggering mechanism for all his best combinations, might have been forgiven if he had gone that way…far from wilting he gained in assurance and authority as the fight moved into the final third of the contest. Time and again he turned back the spidery aggression of Laguna.”

For Buchanan, I’m sure it was nice just to have McIlvanney in attendance. Almost no British press had followed him east for his shot at the title and the reception at home was underwhelming, not least by the BBBC’s preposterous stand over Buchanan’s championship honours. Now, he had earned his status as one of Britain’s great champions.

It is a status he enjoyed at the time of his death today at age 77, a year after his diagnoses with dementia, a status he will always enjoy despite his loss of his lightweight title in his next defence against his nemesis, Roberto Duran.

Duran stopped Ken Buchanan in the thirteenth round of their 1972 Madison Square Garden match, but it is time now to be explicit: the refereeing in this fight was questionable. Johnny LoBianco allowed Duran to foul Buchanan throughout. Sports Illustrated adjudged from ringside that Duran “used every part of his anatomy, everything but his knee” in his pursuit of the title.

Buchanan was even more direct: “I thought I signed up for a wrestling match, not a boxing contest. He hit me in the balls a couple of times without so much as a nod from the referee.” In the thirteenth, Buchanan, trailing on the cards, felt he had one of his better rounds but at the bell, “I turn towards my corner and in the same moment Duran lunges…with a punch that went right into my balls.” The punch was so hard that it split Buchanan’s protector. Examined by a doctor after the fight he was found to have significant swelling of the testicles. The referee, incredibly, didn’t even admonish Duran for throwing a fight-finishing punch after the bell while simultaneously claiming that the punch had been “to the solar plexus.”

To be clear, Duran was better than Buchanan. It’s almost impossible to envisage Buchanan turning the fight around and however he personally felt about the thirteenth, if he received four rounds on a scorecard, that scorecard would be generous. But it is also wrong to see anyone drop his title in such circumstances and the unfortunate event saw the beginning of Buchanan’s slide from relevancy and then, later, mental health. He waited by the phone for far too long for Duran to call him up and offer a rematch. Whatever is to be made of it, Duran had no interest in providing one, and in Buchanan’s defence, it’s probable that he never fought a fighter as good as Ken during the whole of the rest of his lightweight reign. Buchanan took it badly, so badly he even flew to North America in the 1990s to see if he could track Duran down and have it out with him. Fortunately, Buchanan didn’t get much further than some downtown bars where he was still fondly remembered by some of the patrons.

Buchanan’s life post-boxing was difficult, but never pitiful. He was proud and however difficult things got, he remained proud. Last year, and just in time, he was in attendance as a statue of him was unveiled on Leith Walk in Edinburgh where he ran as a boy.

Gone now, he will never be forgotten in Scotland. Blessed with speed and great heart he made of himself what he could and it turned out to be just about as much as a Scottish fighter has ever made of himself. To end I offer a quote from The Fight Game In Scotland, a book written by Brian Donald who himself boxed Buchanan when both were Edinburgh teenagers. Brian ran 0-3 but began a lifelong friendship with Buchanan who was always ready to offer the hand of friendship to his defeated opponents.

“Buchanan, like a top-grade malt whisky, held his own in any foreign environment no matter how distant he was from his native shores…he was and remains one of the most accomplished British fighters to fight in foreign rings. His ring style was in some respects a metaphor for his own personality, elusive and tough, and the soaring singularity of his talent was matched by an equally single-minded determination that nobody, but nobody, knew better than Kenny Buchanan what was good for him.”

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

Published

1 day ago

July 25, 2024

David A. Avila

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

East Los Angeles has long been a haven for some of the best fighters around if you can keep them out of trouble. For every Oscar De La Hoya or Seniesa Estrada there are thousands derailed by crime, drugs or drinking.

Boxing has always been a favorite sport of East L.A. Every family has an uncle or two who boxes.

On Friday, 360 Promotions’ Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) fights Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1) in the main event at Commerce Casino, in Commerce, CA. UFC Fight Pass will stream the fight card.

The City of Commerce used to be part of East L.A. until 1960 when it incorporated. It’s still considered to be part of East Los Angeles, but informally.

Plenty of fighters come out of East L.A. but few make it all the way like De La Hoya and Estrada. Will Trinidad be the one?

The first world champion from East L.A. or “East Los” as some call it, was Solly Garcia Smith back in the late 1800s. Others were Richie Lemos, Art Frias and Joey Olivo. There is also 1984 Olympic gold medalist Paul Gonzalez.

Once again 360 Promotions brings its popular brand of fights to the area. On this fight card includes two female bouts. One features Roxy Verduzco (1-0) the former amateur star fighting Colleen Davis (3-1-1) in a featherweight fight.

All that action takes place on Friday.

Elite Boxing

The next day, also in East L.A., Elite Boxing stages another boxing card at Salesian High School located at 960 S. Soto Street in the Boyle Heights area of East Los Angeles.

Elite Boxing has promoted several successful boxing cards at the Catholic high school grounds. The area is saturated by many of the best eateries in Los Angeles. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out yourself and grab some of that delicious food.

Boxing has long been a favorite sport of anyone who lives in East L.A. It’s a fight town equal to Philadelphia, Brooklyn or Detroit. There’s something different about the area. For more than 100 years some of the best fighters continue to come out of its boxing gyms. Some will be performing on these club shows.

For tickets or information go to www.eliteboxingusa.com

Claressa Shields in Detroit

Speaking of fight towns, pound-for-pound best Claressa Shields who won two Olympic Gold Medals in boxing, moves up another weight division to tackle the WBC heavyweight world champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse on Saturday, July 27, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan.

DAZN will stream the heavy-duty fight card.

Shields (14-0) cleaned out the super welterweight, middleweight and super middleweight divisions and now wants to add the big girls to her conquests. She will be facing Canada’s Lepage-Joanisse (7-1) who holds the WBC belt.

The last time Shields gloved up was more than a year ago when she fought Maricela Cornejo. Don’t blame Shields. She loves to fight. She loves to win. The last time Shields lost a fight was in the amateurs and that was three presidential administrations ago.

Shields doesn’t lose.

I wonder if Las Vegas even takes bets on her fights?

The only fight she may have been an underdog was against Savannah Marshall who was the last opponent to defeat her. And that was in 2012 in China. When they met as pros two years ago, Shields avenged her loss with a blistering attack.

Don’t get Shields mad.

Perhaps her toughest foe as a pro was in her pro debut when she clashed with Franchon Crews-Dezurn in Las Vegas. It was four rounds of fists and fury as the two pounded each other on the undercard of Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev in November 2016.

That was a ferocious debut for both female pugilists.

Assisting Shields on this fight card will be several intriguing male bouts. One guy you should pay special attention is Tito Mercado (15-0, 14 KOs) a super lightweight prospect from Pomona, California.

Many excellent fighters have come out of Pomona including Sugar Shane Mosley, Shane Mosley Jr., Alberto Davila and Richie Sandoval who just passed away this week.

Sandoval was best known for his 15-round war with Philadelphia’s Jeff Chandler for the bantamweight world title in 1984. Read the story by Arne K. Lang on this link: https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/featured-boxing-articles-boxing-news-videos-rankings-and-results/81467-former-world-bantamweight-champion-richie-sandoval-passes-away-at-age-63 .

Fights to Watch

Fri. UFC Fight Pass 7 p.m. Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) vs Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1).

Sat. ESPN+ 12:30 p.m. Joe Joyce (16-2) vs Derek Chisora (34-13).

Sat. DAZN 3 p.m. Claressa Shields (14-0) vs Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse (7-1), Michel Rivera (25-1) vs Hugo Roldan (22-2-1); Tito Mercado (15-0) vs Hector Sarmiento (21-2).

Omar Trinidad photo by Lina Baker

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Arne’s Almanac: Jake Paul and Women’s Boxing, a Curmudgeon’s Take

Published

3 days ago

July 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Jake Paul can fight more than a little. The view from here is that he would make it interesting against any fringe contender in the cruiserweight division. However, Jake’s boxing acumen pales when paired against his skill as a flim-flam artist.

Jake brought a 9-1 record into last weekend’s bout with Mike Perry. As noted by boxing writer Paul Magno, Jake’s previous opponents consisted of “a You Tuber, a retired NBA star, five retired MMA stars, a part-time boxer/reality TV star, and two undersized and inactive fall-guy boxers.”

Mike Perry, a 32-year-old Floridian, was undefeated (6-0, 3 KOs) as a bare-knuckle boxer after forging a 14-8 record in UFC bouts. In pre-fight blurbs, Perry was billed as the baddest bare knuckle boxer of all time, but against Jake Paul he proved to have very unrefined skills as a conventional boxer which Team Paul undoubtedly knew all along. Perry lasted into the eighth round in a one-sided fight that could have been stopped a lot sooner.

Jake Paul is both a boxer and a promoter. As a promoter, he handles Amanda Serrano, one of the greatest female boxers in history. That makes him the person most responsible (because the buck stops with him) for the wretched mismatch in last Saturday’s co-feature, the bout between Serrano and Stevie Morgan.

Morgan, who took up boxing two years ago at age 33, brought a 14-1 record. Nicknamed the Sledgehammer, she had won 13 of her 14 wins by knockout, eight in the opening round. However, although she resides in Florida, all but one of those 13 knockouts happened in Colombia.

“We found that in Colombia there were just more opportunities for women’s boxing than in the United States,” she told a prominent boxing writer whose name we won’t mention.

The truth is that, for some folks, Colombia is the boxing equivalent of a feeder lot for livestock, a place where a boxer can go to fatten their record. The opportunities there were no greater than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1995. It was there that Peter McNeeley prepped for his match with Mike Tyson with a 6-second knockout of professional punching bag Frankie Hines. (Six seconds? So it would be written although no one seems to have been there to witness it.)

Serrano vs Morgan was understood to be a stay-busy fight for Amanda whose rematch with Katie Taylor was postponed until November. Stevie Morgan, to her credit, answered the bell for the second round whereas others in her situation would have remained on the stool and invented an injury to rationalize it. Thirty-eight seconds later it was all over and Ms. Morgan was free to go home and use her sledgehammer to do some light dusting.

The Paul-Perry and Serrano-Morgan fights played out in a sold-out arena in Tampa before an estimated 17,000. Those without a DAZN subscription paid $64.95 for the livestream. Paul’s next promotion, where he will touch gloves with 58-year-old Mike Tyson (unless Iron Mike pulls a Joe Biden and pulls out; a capital idea) with Serrano-Taylor II the semi-main, will almost certainly rake in more money than any other boxing promotion this year.

Asked his opinion of so-called crossover boxing by a reporter for a college newspaper, the venerable boxing promoter Bob Arum said, “It’s not my bag but folks who don’t like it shouldn’t get too worked up over it because no one is stealing from anybody.” True enough, but for some of us, the phenomenon is distressing.

—

The next big women’s fight happens Saturday in Detroit where Claressa Shields seeks a world title in a third weight class against WBC heavyweight belt-holder Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist, undefeated in 14 fights as a pro, Shields is very good, arguably the best female boxer of her generation which makes her, arguably, the best female boxer of all time. But turning away Lepage-Joanisse (7-1, 2 KOs) won’t elevate her stature in our eyes.

Purportedly 17-4 as an amateur, the Canadian won her title in her second crack at it. Back in August of 2017, she challenged Cancun’s Alejandra Jimenez in Cancun and was stopped in the third round. Entering the bout, Lepage-Joanisse was 3-0 as a pro and had never fought a match slated for more than four rounds.

Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

True, on the women’s side, the heavyweight bracket is a very small pod. A sanctioning body has to make concessions to harness a sanctioning fee. Nonetheless, how absurd that a woman who had answered the bell for only 11 rounds would be deemed qualified to compete for a world title. (FYI: Alejandra Jimenez was purportedly born a man. She left the sport with a 12-0-1 record after her win over Franchon Crews Dazurn was changed to a no-contest when she tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol.)

Following her defeat to Jimenez, Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse, now 29 years old, was out of action for six-and-a-half years. When she returned, she was still a heavyweight, but a much slender heavyweight. She carried 231 pounds for Jimenez. In her most recent bout where she captured the vacant WBC title with a split decision over Argentina’s Abril Argentina Vidal, she clocked in at 173 ¼. (On the distaff side, there’s no uniformity among the various sanctioning bodies as to what constitutes a heavyweight.)

Claressa Shields doesn’t need Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse to reinforce her credentials as a future Hall of Famer. She made the cut a long time ago.

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Former World Bantamweight Champion Richie Sandoval Passes Away at Age 63

Published

4 days ago

July 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Richie Sandoval, who won the WBA and lineal bantamweight title in one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s and then, not quite two years later, suffered near-fatal injuries in a title defense, has passed away at the age of 63.

News circulated fast in the Las Vegas boxing community on Monday, July 22, the grapevine actuated by a tweet from Hall of Fame matchmaker Bruce Trampler: “Boxing and the Top Rank family lost one of our own last night in the passing of former WBA bantamweight champion Richie Sandoval. It hurts personally and professionally to know that Richie is gone at age 63. RIP campeon.”

Details are vague but the cause of death was apparently a sudden heart attack that Sandoval experienced while visiting the Southern California home of his son of the same name.

Richie Sandoval put the LA County community of Pomona, California, on the boxing map before Shane Mosley came along and gave the town a more frequently-cited mention in the sports section of the papers. He came from a fighting family. An older brother, Albert “Superfly” Sandoval, became a big draw at LA’s fabled Olympic Auditorium while building a 35-2-1 record that included a failed bid to capture Lupe Pintor’s world bantamweight title.

Richie was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic boxing team that was stranded when U.S. President Jimmy Carter (and many other world leaders) boycotted the event as a protest against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

As a pro, Sandoval’s signature win was a 15^th-round stoppage of Jeff Chandler. They fought on April 7, 1984 in Atlantic City. Chandler was making the tenth defense of his world bantamweight title.

Despite being a heavy underdog, Sandoval dominated the fight, winning almost every round until the referee stepped in and waived it off. Chandler, who was 33-1-2 heading in and had avenged his lone defeat, never fought again.

Sandoval made two successful defenses before risking his title against Gaby Canizales on the undercard of Hagler-Mugabi in the outdoor stadium at Caesars Palace. In round seven, Sandoval, who had a hellish time making the weight, was knocked down three times and suffered a seizure as he collapsed from the third knockdown. Stretchered out of the ring, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors reduced the swelling in his brain and beat the odds to save his life. This would be Richie’s lone defeat. He finished his pro career with a record of 29-1 (17 KOs).

Bob Arum cushioned some of the pain by giving Richie a $25,000 bonus and offering him a lifetime job at Top Rank which Richie accepted. And let the record show that Arum was good to his word.

A more elaborate portrait of Richie Sandoval was published in these pages in 2017. You can check it out HERE. May he rest in peace.

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