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Munguia Nips Derevyanchenko in a Fierce Battle at Ontario
ONTARIO, Calif.-In perhaps the most explosive fight so far this year Mexico’s Jaime Munguia needed a knockdown to overcome the hard charging Sergiy Derevyanchenko in the last round to win a close unanimous decision and the WBC Silver super middleweight title on Saturday.
“He was very, very hurt and we deserved to win the fight,” said Munguia.
No one was disappointed in the fight.
Tijuana’s Munguia (42-0, 33 KOs) knew stepping into the prize ring that Ukraine’s Derevyanchenko (14-5, 10 KOs) was as dangerous as a stick of dynamite and so did the nearly sold-out crowd at Toyota Arena.
What they didn’t know was both have chins of granite.
It didn’t take long for the action to ignite. After Munguia connected solidly with a body shot, Derevyanchenko opened up with a two-fisted attack that had the Mexican fighter on his heels. Both blasted each other with lefts and rights.
The crowd went crazy.
Derevyanchenko showed he could take Munguia’s best early and both also displayed outstanding chins. After each connected with big blasts, they looked at each other almost surprised that the other was still standing.
Both fighters almost seemed to take turns out-performing the other with combustive combinations that seemed to echo in the arena.
Derevyanchenko unloaded in the fifth round in what could be the Round of the Year. Each connected with blows that snapped each other’s head violently and each returned with more big shots. It was surprising to see neither fighter seemed seriously hurt. Stunned, yes, but neither was close to going down. Derevyanchenko seemed to have a slight advantage.
The crowd ate it up.
Munguia seemed determined to crash the Ukrainian fighter’s dreams and unloaded with a ferocious volley of blows. The left hooks seemed to be the most effective punch for the taller Mexican fighter, but Derevyanchenko survived.
Just when it seemed Munguia had gained the momentum, Derevyanchenko rammed his head into the Munguia who immediately was hurt by the collision. When the fight resumed, Derevyanchenko took control as Munguia winced in pain. The Ukrainain suddenly gained control of the match.
When it seemed Munguia was losing the fight, he used the left hook to regain control. Throughout the fight the left hook seemed to be Munguia’s most potent weapon. The Mexican fighter refrained from avoiding blows and went forward with more determination. It paid off.
In the 11th round a left hook to the body by the Mexican fighter forced the Ukrainian to hold again. It was a foretelling moment.
Both fighters shook hands in the final round. No one knew who was ahead and Munguia launched into an all-out attack with left hooks. A left to the body and left to the head saw Derevyanchenko slump to the floor. A body shot opened up an even more serious attack by Munguia who chased Derevyanchenko around the ring. Always targeting the body, the Mexican fighter had the Ukrainian fighter in survival mode.
“He punched me in the rib,” said Derevyanchenko.
Derevyanchenko survived but lost the last round 10-8 due to the knockdown. It proved the difference in the fight as the judges scored it 114-113 twice and 115-112 for Munguia.
“I’m really happy I won,” said Munguia. “He was moving a lot but I caught him.”
Derevyanchenko felt he won the majority of the 12 rounds.
“I thought I won eight, nine rounds,” said Derevyanchenko.
Munguia was sure he won.
“I was doing my work and started working on the body. Once he went down I knew that I had it,” Munguia said.
After the fight Munguia received a call from Jose Benavidez, the father of David Benavidez.
Munguia assured him he is ready for anyone.
“After this, whatever champion is ready I’m waiting for them,” he said.
Mosley
Pomona’s Shane Mosley Jr. (20-4, 11 KOs) battered D’Mitrius Ballard (21-2-1, 13 KOs) for four rounds before finally scoring a knockdown in the fifth and ending the fight with a seventh round knockout in their middleweight contest.
Boos cascaded the arena in the third round but Mosley was just getting started. Eventually the early body shots on Ballard began to break him down and resulted in a six-punch battering that sent him reeling across the ring and down for a count in the fifth round.
Ballard survived that round and another.
Mosley pounded away with overhand rights that found the mark almost every time. Then he mixed body shots and a right uppercut and Ballard was in trouble again. He tried to fight his way out of it but only got in more trouble as Mosley connected again with eight more blows including a head-snapper that forced referee Thomas Taylor to jump in to stop the fight at 1:42 of the seventh round.
Mosley was declared the winner by knockout and the new NABO middleweight titlist.
“In the early rounds I just wanted to break that body down. He kept his hands really high. Once he started pulling those hand down to protect that. I started going over the top,” said Mosley.
Mayeli Flores Beats Mariana Juarez
A battle between two Mexican super bantamweights saw the younger Mayeli Flores (10-1-1, 3 KOs) pound her way to victory over legendary Mariana “Barbie” Juarez (55-13-4, 19 KOs) after eight ferocious rounds.
How Juarez survived without suffering a knockdown was her decades of skill.
Mexico’s City’s Juarez used her jab and movement to win the first round as Flores bobbed and weaved looking to close the distance with overhand rights and wide left hooks. By the second round she found the range.
Flores pounded away at Juarez with power blow after power blow. Juarez was able to slip most of the shots but not all of them Her sharp jab was not enough to keep the shorter Flores from scoring.
The constant pressure by Flores (pictured in the white trunks) forced Juarez to cover up against the ropes. The shorter Mexican fighter unloaded with a barrage of blows as the crowd’s cheers got louder anticipating a knockout. Somehow Juarez used her craft and guile to fight out off the ropes and change places. It was a near knockout but Juarez evaded a stoppage.
“I think at that part, she used her experience. That was the key for Mariana, that she used her experience to survive,” said Flores.
In the fifth round Juarez pounded away at Flores’’ body and that seemed to take the momentum away from Flores. Juarez then returned to stiff jabs and pivoted away. It was Juarez best round since the opening but Flores was still pounding away.
Flores increased the pressure in the sixth round with a furious attack. The multi-division former champion Juarez tried to jab her way out but was caught with savage blows. Again Flores unloaded a furious attack and this time Juarez’s face showed blood and it looked bad for the legendary fighter.
She survived.
Juarez knew she was behind and stopped moving. She planted her feet and fired away at Flores who seemed excited about the new tactics. Both exchanged liberally but though Juarez connected, her blows were not as forceful as Flores. Still, Juarez kept punching.
Referee Jack Reiss seemed concerned but allowed the future hall of fame fighter to continue. She was determined to fight it out.
In the last round, both fighters fired away with Juarez and Flores both looking for a knockout to end the fight. Both connected but Flores had more zing on her punches. Juarez slipped and countered and kept winging blows against the shorter fighter until the final bell.
Both hugged at the bell.
“Not for nothing I respect Mariana Juarez. It demonstrated that the Mexican women can fight at a high level,” said Flores. “She was one of the fighters I looked at when I was young.”
Sandoval Wins
Rialto’s Ricardo Sandoval (22-2, 16 KOs) showed off his higher level of boxing in defeating L.A.’s Rocco Santomauro (22-2, 6 KOs) by unanimous decision after eight rounds in a flyweight contest.
Sandoval could not miss with the overhand rights and later used a body attack to administer more blows. After dominating the first seven rounds the Rialto fighter tired and that opened it up for Santomauro who was in great condition despite absorbing a pounding.
After 10 rounds Sandoval was deemed the winner by unanimous decision 96-94 twice and 98-92.
Photos credit: Al Applerose
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 299: Golden Boy in Saudi Arabia and More
Avila Perspective, Chap. 299: Golden Boy in Saudi Arabia and More
A small brigade of Mexican and Latino-American fighters gathered at the beautiful Mayan Theater in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday.
Their mission: to export Mexican style fighting to the Saudi Arabia desert.
Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez defends the WBA cruiserweight title against WBO cruiserweight titlist Chris Billam-Smith and they will be joined by several other top Golden Boy Promotion fighters on Nov. 16 at the Venue in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
DAZN will stream the Golden Boy and BOXXER promotions card called “The Venue Riyadh Season.”
Mexican fighters are known worldwide for their ferocity and durability. Ramirez, a former super middleweight champion, surprised many with his convincing win over former champion Arsen Goulamirian last March.
Now Ramirez seeks to unify the cruiserweight titles against United Kingdom’s Smith who has never fought outside of his native country.
“I will become the first Mexican cruiserweight unified champion. It’s exciting because my dream will come true this November 16,” said Ramirez.
Smith has a similar goal.
“This opportunity for me is huge,” said Smith. “I’ve been written off many times before.”
The cruiserweights will be joined by two top super lightweight warriors who’ve been itching to face each other like a pair of fighting roosters.
Arnold Barboza, an undefeated super lightweight contender from Los Angeles, has been chasing top contenders and world champions for the past six years. Former super lightweight champion Jose Ramirez simply wants action and a return to elite status.
“I’ve been wanting this fight since 2019 for whatever reason it never happened,” said Barboza. “I want to give credit and thanks to Oscar, he’s a man of his word. When I signed to Golden Boy, he said he was going to give me this fight.”
“It’s honorable Barboza saying he’s been chasing the fight since 2019. Now that he stands in the way for me to reclaim my titles it’s time to get that fight on,” said Ramirez.
Others on the Riyadh fight card include Puerto Rico’s WBO minimumweight world titlist Oscar Collazo defending against Thailand’s Thammanoon Niyomtrong, along with Oscar Duarte and lightweight contenders William Zepeda and Tevin Farmer.
One fighter missing from the card is Charles Conwell, the super welterweight contender they recently signed earlier in the year. He last performed on the Vergil Ortiz Jr. and Serhii Bohachuk clash in Las Vegas.
Conwell has similar talent to those two.
And what about the women fighters”
Yokasta Valle recently re-signed with Golden Boy Promotions. What is her next scheduled fight? She was spotted facing up against Australia’s Lulu “Bang, Bang” Hawton at a fight card. Is that on the horizon?
West Coast venues
Speaking of the Mayan Theater in downtown Los Angeles, its just a few buildings north of the Belasco Theater where Golden Boy was staging its club shows for several years.
A majority of the boxing media favored that location for its cozy atmosphere and proximity to LA Live. A number of prospects that developed into contenders and world champions fought there including Vergil Ortiz Jr., Ryan Garcia, Joshua Franco, and Oscar Duarte.
On any given fight night celebrities like Mario Lopez, George Lopez and others would show up in the small venue that held several hundred fans in its ornate theater setting.
The Mayan Theater and Belasco Theater are still open for business. According to one source, LA Laker owner Jeannie Buss stages a pro wrestling show at one of those theaters.
World title fight
England’s Nick Ball (20-0-1, 11 KOs) defends the WBA featherweight world title against Southern California’s Ronny Rios (34-4, 17 KOs) on Saturday Oct. 5, at M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool, England. Starting time for the Queensberry and Top Rank promotion card is 11 a.m. PT.
Ball was last seen nearly toppling WBC featherweight titlist Rey Vargas but lost last March. He then defeated Ray Ford for the WBA title
Fights to Watch
Fri. ESPN+ 2 a.m. PT Janibek Alimkhanuly (15-0) vs Andrei Mikhailovich (21-0)
Sat. ESPN+ 11 a.m. PT Nick Ball (20-0-1) vs Ronny Rios (34-4)
Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy
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Boxing Odds and Ends: ‘Paint-Gate,’ the Haney-Garcia lawsuit and More
This reporter chanced upon Manny “Flick” Savoy yesterday afternoon at a boxing gym in Las Vegas. That afforded me an opportunity to get his take on “paint gate.”
In case you missed it, Sandy Ryan was splashed with red paint on Friday as she left her hotel for Madison Square Garden where she would be defending her WBO world welterweight title against Mikaela Mayer. Manny Savoy was roughly 10 feet away from her when the incident happened. It happened so fast and was so unexpected that Savoy – who would be Ryan’s chief voice in her corner — never got a good look at the perpetrator who was wearing a hoodie.
A security camera captured the attack and Savoy keeps the little video on his cell phone. In the video that Savoy shared with me, one can see a late-model vehicle pull up and double-park. The man with the hoodie emerges from the passenger side holding a receptacle of some sort and then, moments later, rushes back without it and the car speeds off.
The paint-splashing was part of a multi-pronged assault. Sandy Ryan was defamed in leaflets that appeared around her hotel and near Madison Garden. The leaflets had Ryan’s image and the text, among other things, called her a whore. (We were shown a screenshot of one of the leaflets tacked to a pole, but it was not a close-up and we were only able to make out a few words.)
Who would do such a thing and why? Let’s rule out the possibility that the assault was random; that’s too far-fetched. Someone had to have been tipped-off when Sandy Ryan would emerge from her hotel. The defamatory leaflets, coupled with the paint attack and threatening messages from anonymous callers that Ryan says were left on her phone, are compelling evidence that this was a premeditated and well-thought-out scheme of attack.
Sandy Ryan and Mikaela Mayer were well-acquainted. They had known each other since their amateur days. Mikaela had sparred with Sandy in preparation for the 2016 Olympics. But what had been a warm relationship soured when Ryan hooked up with Mikaela’s coach Kay Koroma in Las Vegas at the same gym where Mayer regularly trained. Mikaela didn’t think that was kosher and eventually ditched Koroma in favor of Kofi Jantuah, a sundering that left hard feelings on both sides.
Ryan is firm in her belief that Mayer’s team was behind the attack. “What else could it be?” she says. Manny Savoy won’t go that far, but notes that Ryan, a British citizen with a home in Portugal, never spent enough time in New York to make any enemies there. Her fight with Mayer was her second fight in the U.S. and her first fight in the Big Apple.
Mikaela Mayer’s manager George Ruiz was quick to respond to Sandy Ryan’s veiled accusation: “Let me be clear. No one associated with Team Mayer had anything to do with the paint assault on you or the leaflets and the alleged anonymous threatening messages you say you received….Mikaela and Team Mayer want the perpetrator(s) found, caught, and punished to the full extent of the law.”
(The view from here is that while it seems logical that someone associated with Mayer orchestrated the attack, we would be shocked if Mikaela had any foreknowledge of it. The lady has far too much common-sense to get involved in a scheme that could ruin her boxing career and her promising post-boxing career as a TV boxing pundit.)
The presumed intent was to psychologically unsettle Sandy Ryan to where she couldn’t bring her A-game. (Sandy was a short favorite and the odds wavered only slightly, diluting the theory that the assault was orchestrated as part of a betting coup.)
As for the fight itself, it was outstanding. If Ryan was rattled, she didn’t show it although she came out on the short end of a majority decision, a decision that was somewhat controversial. (ESPN’s Mark Kriegel had Ryan winning six rounds to four.)
Ryan’s promoter Eddie Hearn has called on the WBO to mandate a rematch. “[Sandy] had to go back to her room, take all her clothes off, take all the paint off her body. [She had to be] emotionally shocked to pieces and yet she gave an incredible performance. The WBO, if they have any compassion, must order an immediate rematch.”
The rematch, if it happens, won’t be in New York. Advised to leave the city for her own safety, Sandy Ryan got out of town in a hurry.
—
In an article published here on June 23, Thomas Hauser wrote about the possible ramifications to Ryan Garcia’s failed PED test beyond the sanctions imposed upon him by the New York State Athletic Commission. Garcia’s victory over previously undefeated Devin Haney at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on April 30, 2024, was a changed to a no-contest when ostarine, a banned substance, was discovered in Garcia’s urine samples.
Hauser speculated that Team Haney might file a lawsuit against Garcia. By using a performance-enhancing substance, Garcia denied Devin a level playing field, yielding a result that adversely affected Devin’s future earnings, or so it would be argued.
Team Haney was paying attention. Six days ago, on Sept. 27, they filed a lawsuit in New York seeking compensation for “battery, fraud, and breach of contract.”
If successful, the lawsuit, which has polarized the boxing community, may benefit the sport. “Win, lose, or draw in court, I think this is actually a good thing to deter fighters from using performance enhancing drugs because the [current] penalty is not strict enough,” said Eddie Hearn in a conversation with Boxing Social.
—
This is a boxing site, but kindly indulge me as I go off-topic and say a few words about Pete Rose who passed away at his home in Las Vegas on Monday, one day after appearing with several of his former Cincinnati Reds teammates at a sports memorabilia show in Nashville.
I never felt sorry for Pete because he was an a-hole. Ask some of the veteran blackjack dealers here in Las Vegas and you will be hard-pressed to find one who has a nice word to say about him. However, whether his lifetime ban from baseball should have been lifted so that he could go into the Hall of Fame while he was still alive…well, that’s a horse of a different color.
Pete Rose was baseball’s all-time hit king, but forget the stats; he transcended the sport.
News of Pete’s death transported me back more than three decades to a conversation I had with my young son who hadn’t yet started kindergarten. He had become a fan of the Atlanta Braves, one of two teams (the other was the Cubs) whose home and away games were nationally televised.
One day, when he was watching baseball and I was in the next room, he came in and said, “dad, so-and-so [the player’s name eludes me] just did a Charlie Hustle.”
I have no idea where he got that from and he likely wouldn’t have recognized Pete Rose if he had bumped into him on the street – Pete had been out of baseball for some time – but I knew exactly what he was talking about. He had just witnessed a player on the Braves beat out an infield hit or maybe a bunt by sliding head-first into first base.
A friend e-mailed me yesterday from North Carolina and said, “From my view, the Hall is diminished by not having him in there rather than the other way around.”
I share that sentiment. If you disagree, we can still be friends.
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Alycia Baumgardner is Legit, but her Title Defense vs Persoon was a Weird Artifice
Women’s fights were bursting out all over this past weekend. The bout that warranted the most attention, one could argue, was the match between Alycia Baumgardner and Delfine Persoon. That’s because it had the most world titles at stake; Baumgardner was recognized as the world super featherweight champion by all four major sanctioning bodies. But this fight got lost in the shuffle because two other female title fights were packaged on larger platforms. On Friday at Madison Square Garden, airing on ESPN, Mikaela Mayer captured the WBO welterweight title from Sandy Ryan. On Saturday in Sheffield, England, airing on Sky Sports in the UK and globally on DAZN, Terri Harper wrested the WBO lightweight title from Rhiannon Dixon.
Baumgardner vs. Persoon, the capstone of an all-female, nine-bout card, was staged before an invitation-only audience at a film and TV production studio situated near Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. The card, all nine bouts, was livestreamed on BrinX.TV, a fledging, sports-oriented streaming platform. We made it a point to check it out, less because we were smitten by the card than because we had heard of BrinX.TV and we didn’t quite understand it.
Baumgardner kept her hardware in a bout that ended inconclusively (more about that later). As for BrinX.TV which bills itself as the next generation of sports and entertainment (company motto: ‘The Kingdom of Awesomeness”), we still don’t quite understand it.
Here’s what we know: BrinX.TV is into niche sports. Examples include freestyle trampolining, downhill skateboarding, powerboat racing, and jai alai. “The more unique the sport, the more passionate its fans,” says BrinX.TV co-founder and spokesperson John Brenkus.
Where it gets weird is that viewers have a chance to compete for cash prizes while watching a competition. However, to have skin in the game, one apparently has to purchase something. There’s a shopping channel component in the BrinX.TV business model.
The chief sponsor of the all-female boxing card was Ninja Pirates Misfits which appears to be a clothing brand with no relation to the 2012 animated film, “The Pirates! Brand of Misfits.” It must be a brand-new brand because the only item offered for sale during the boxing card was a $45 tee shirt. We might be wrong, but we were left with the impression that the player that won the most money finagled his way to the top of the leaderboard by buying the most tee shirts.
One doesn’t merely make a fashion statement by purchasing a Ninja Pirates Misfits tee shirt. A portion of the receipts, we were told, would go to increasing the prize pool for the boxers while, in a wider context, “elevating women in sports.”
The card moved at a brisk pace through the first five fights. It slowed to a crawl when John Brenkhus addressed the audience from the center of the ring. “The energy here is amazing,” said Brinkhus to the largely subdued crowd of perhaps 200 people, some of whom were dressed in formal attire. Later in the show, he brought Laila Ali and then former NFL player Dez Bryant into the ring and gushed over them while they reciprocated by congratulating him for “making history.”
Brenkus intentionally created the impression that this was the first all-female card in the annals of boxing. It was no such thing.
Not quite two years ago, there was an all-female show at London’s O2 Arena, a Matchroom promotion topped by two compelling title fights, Claressa Shields vs Savannah Marshall and Mikaela Mayer vs Alycia Baumgardner, with former Olympians Lauren Price, Caroline Dubois, Karriss Artingstall and Ginny Fuchs showcased in four of the nine supporting bouts.
Moreover, a quick google search reveals that the O2 event wasn’t the first of its kind. On July 13, 1979, there was an all-female card at the LA Sports Center. A very good bantamweight, Graciela Casillas, made her pro debut on the undercard which also included a fight for Mirian “Lady Tyger” Trimiar who would be named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2020 along with her cohort, the fraudulent Jackie Tonawanda.
Baumgardner vs. Persoon: The Fight
Alycia Baumgardner, 15-1 with 7 KOs heading in, was a unified champion. In her most recent bout, in July of last year, she avenged her lone defeat with a lopsided decision over Christina Linardatou.
Delfine Persoon, who brought a 49-3 (19) record, will be the first fighter from Belgium to go into the Hall of Fame, of that we are quite certain. Two of her three losses came at the hands of Irish superstar Katie Taylor and the first of those losses, underneath Joshua-Ruiz I at Madison Square Garden, was a barnburner that could have gone either way. There were scattered boos when Taylor was announced the winner by majority decision, notwithstanding the fact that the crowd was teeming with Brits.
But Persoon wasn’t the same fighter against Alycia Baumgardner that she had been back in the day when she touched gloves with Katie Taylor. She was now 39 years old (Baumgardner is 30) and entered the ring wearing a large brace over her right knee, an apparatus that compromised her mobility.
In the first round, Alycia knocked Persoon off-balance with a left-right combination. It was ruled a knockdown when both of Persoon’s gloves brushed the canvas.
In round four, with Baumgardner up by 4 points on all three cards through the three completed rounds, a clash of heads left the Belgian with a nasty gash above her right eye and referee Laurence Cole, on the advice of the ring doctor, stopped the fight. By rule, the bout had to go four full rounds to go to the scorecards. It fell 23 seconds short and was ruled a “no-contest.” Ergo, Baumgardner retained her titles.
Afterthoughts
Of the 18 ladies on the BrinX.TV card, eight were making their pro debut and several of these novices were already in their 30s. But, while they were new to boxing, they were not new to combat sports.
In the new world order, there’s a lot of crossover, especially at the club fight level. Boxrec, the sport’s indispensable record keeper, now carries BK (bare knuckle) and TCL (Team Combat League) results. Add MMA to the mix and there are now four pieces to the combat sports pie, five if one counts kickboxing as a separate entity. And while many women boxers in the past had a kickboxing background, nowadays there is more fluidity across multiple disciplines (a major headache for state boxing commissions).
Of the undercard fighters, we were most impressed by super bantamweight Isabel Vasquez, a 21-year-old Floridian, and junior welterweight Stephanie Simon, a 30-year-old former Marine and former U.S. national amateur champion. Both would appear to have bright futures at the professional level.
A final note: We would be remiss if we failed to note that BrinX.TV is free and that one doesn’t have to jump through hoops to summon it up. Hooray for that. And for the record, this reporter didn’t buy any Ninja Pirates Misfits tee shirts; we already had plenty in the closet (just kidding).
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