Charles Martin: “I’m a young 37 and have never been more passionate about boxing”

Published

10 months ago

June 26, 2023

Charles-Martin-I'm-a-young-37-and-Have-Never-Been-More-Passionate-About-Boxing

Jared Anderson was slated to fight Kazakhstan’s Zhan Kossobutskiy on July 1 on ESPN in a match emanating from the 9,000-seat Huntington Center in Toledo, Ohio. That match-up fell out, purportedly because Kossobutskiy had visa problems. In steps Charles Martin and now the stakes are higher for Jared Anderson.

Anderson, a mere pup for a heavyweight at twenty-three years of age, has knocked out all 14 of his opponents at the professional level. Only two lasted beyond the third round. Hailed as the next great American heavyweight and a sure-shot future world champion, the Toledo native is on the path to becoming a very rich man.

Zhan Kossobutskiy’s record is no less impressive: 19-0 with 18 knockouts. However, Charles Martin (29-3-1, 26 KOs) is in some ways a more credible opponent.

Won-loss records in boxing are notoriously misleading and that’s especially true for a relative unknown who has never fought on American soil. Knowledgeable fans who have studied Kossubutskiy’s fights on youtube have told this reporter that he is legit and it’s worth noting that he defeated future Olympians Vassiliy Levit, Guido Vianello, and Frazer Clarke in his amateur days. However, the fact remains that as a pro, akin to Jared Anderson, he has yet to fight a reputable opponent. One of the few recognizable names on his ledger is Philadelphia journeyman Joey Dawejko. The Kazakh stopped him in the second round in Hamburg Germany, but the usually durable Dawejko came in overweight (a career-high 266 ¾ pounds) and fought as if he were just there for the payday.

If Anderson had fought Kossobutskiy and had blown him away, many pundits would have cushioned their kind words with the caveat that Jared still hasn’t been properly tested. If, perchance, Anderson blows away Charles Martin on July 1, retrospectives won’t command a caveat. “Prince Charles” has certainly been found wanting on occasion, but the St. Louis native has been in with some of the division’s hardest hitters and has the added beguilement of having once been a world title-holder.

His reign didn’t last long. Not quite three months after capturing the vacant IBF title with a quirky third-round stoppage of Vyacheslav Glazkov at Barclays Center in Brooklyn (Glazkov fell and suffered a knee injury), Martin went to London and was blasted out in the second round by Anthony Joshua. He is 6-2 since that mishap, most recently a fourth-round stoppage of 2004 U.S. Olympian Devin Vargas.

Charles Martin

2014 insert

Martin, pictured above with the late Michael King in a 2014 photo, is one of the last remnants of a grand experiment that bore little fruit.

A TV mogul – the family business, King World Productions, syndicated such powerhouses as “Oprah” and “Wheel of Fortune” — Michael King was a diehard boxing fan who built a state-of-the-art gym in Carson, California, with an eye to growing the next generation of great American heavyweights. He thought blue-chip athletes toiling in other sports like football and basketball were the best prospects.

King funneled millions into his pet project with the little to show for it. Six-foot-seven Dominic Breazeale, a former college quarterback, made the U.S. Olympic team and was a two-time world title challenger, but manufacturing a world champion proved to be elusive and King wasn’t there to celebrate when Charles Martin held the IBF belt aloft at the Barclays Center. The previous year, he contracted pneumonia and passed away at age sixty-seven.

Charles Martin, who comfortably carries 245 pounds on a six-foot-five frame, has the look of someone who would have excelled on the hardwood or the gridiron. However, that wasn’t the case. Unlike other heavyweights sponsored by Michael King, Martin, one might say, fell through the cracks.

“I was real skinny in high school and my mother didn’t want me to play football,” says Martin who bounced around in his schoolboy days and was living in Phoenix when he left school in the 11^th grade. And basketball? “I was okay playing in the street,” he says, “but lousy in a structured environment.”

What, then, was his best sport? “Bowling,” he says matter-of-factly. He currently plays in two leagues and avouches that his best game was a 269.

Another surprise awaited when Martin was asked to name his favorite boxers. The first name that popped out of his mouth was a Welshman, Joe Calzaghe. The two would seem to have little in common other than both being southpaws.

Since winning the title, Martin’s career has been choppy but there were underlying factors. “I lost my love for boxing after what happened in the Joshua fight,” he says. A full year elapsed before Martin fought again.

Then there was Covid. He’s had two encounters with the debilitating virus, the first popping up following his 2018 match with Adam Kownacki wherein he lost a 10-round decision.

“When I got to JFK Airport, it hit me,” he says. “They say that some people lose their sense of taste and sense of smell when they get it. I didn’t, but when I got home, I was so fatigued that all I wanted to do was stay in bed.”

Martin says that he had another brush with it after visiting his wife’s family in Atlanta. That begs the question of whether he was 100 percent on New Year’s Day of 2022 when Cuban slugger Luis “King Kong” Ortiz saddled him with his third loss. Martin was upright but on unsteady legs when the bout was waived off in the sixth frame.

Martin had Ortiz down twice before the roof fell in. He was ahead on all three cards through the five completed rounds.

“I don’t want to take anything away from Ortiz,” he says. “He hit me with some good shots. But something was wrong with me. After five rounds, I didn’t have any bounce in my legs.”

The setback to Ortiz, he says, had the exact opposite effect of his setback to Anthony Joshua. “After Joshua,” he says, “you couldn’t get me back in the gym unless I had a fight in the works. Now I couldn’t wait to get back in the gym.”

Martin now resides in Las Vegas where there is a sizeable colony of heavyweights. Veterans like Jonnie Rice and Michael Hunter, up-and-comers like Jeremiah Milton, Skylar Lacy, and Patrick Mailata, and a steady stream of European visitors like Joe Joyce have created something of a round-robin vibe in the local gyms where they spar. Oddly, although southpaws are always in demand as sparring partners, Martin says that he has never sparred with Jared Anderson. “I think it’s better that way,” he says, alluding to the fact that neither will enter the ring with any preconceptions.

Martin is the father of seven children. “One of my goals,” he says, “is to get all my kids under the same roof.” The youngest of his children, two-year-old twin boys, have been diagnosed as autistic. He plans to use his upcoming fight as a platform to make the public more aware of this complex disorder.

In handicapping the Anderson-Martin fight, the age gap looms large. “I know this is a young man’s game,” he says, “but I am a young thirty-seven.” And while Martin will be fighting in a hostile setting – this is a “welcome home” fight for Anderson who will be making his first start as a pro in the city where he was born and raised – the match is something of a homecoming fight for him as well. Martin finished his amateur career at a tournament in Toledo.

Based on the odds, Jared Anderson should have little trouble advancing his record to 15-0. Charles Martin stands ready to gum up the works.

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Arne K. Lang

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 282: Ryan’s Song, Golden Boy in Fresno and More

Published

1 day ago

April 26, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 282: Ryan’s Song, Golden Boy in Fresno and More

Don’t call it an upset.

Days after Ryan Garcia proved the experts wrong, those same experts are re-tooling their evaluation processes.

It’s mind-boggling to me that 95 percent thought Garcia had no chance. Hear me out.

First, Garcia and Haney fought six times as amateurs with each winning three. But this time with no head gear and smaller gloves, Garcia had to have at least a 50/50 chance of winning. He is faster and a more powerful puncher.

Facts.

Haney is a wonderful boxer with smooth, almost artistic movements. But history has taught us power and speed like Garcia’s can’t be discounted. Think way back to legendary fighters like Willie Pep and Sandy Sadler. All that excellent defensive skill could not prevent Sadler from beating Pep in three of their four meetings.

Power has always been an equalizer against boxing skill.

Ben Lira, one of the wisest and most experienced trainers in Southern California, always professed knockout power was the greatest equalizer in a fight. “You can be behind for nine rounds and one punch can change the outcome,” he said.

Another weird theory spreading before the fight was that Garcia would quit in the fight. That was a puzzling one. Getting stopped by a perfect body shot is not quitting. And that punch came from Gervonta “Tank” Davis who can really crack.

So how did Garcia do it?

In the opening round Ryan Garcia timed Devin Haney’s jab and countered with a snapping left hook that rattled and wobbled the super lightweight champion. After that, Garcia forced Haney to find another game plan.

Garcia and trainer Derrick James must have worked hours on that move.

I must confess that I first saw Garcia’s ability many years ago when he was around 11 or 12. So I do have an advantage regarding his talent. A few things I noticed even back then were his speed and power. Also, that others resented his talent but respected him. He was the guy with everything: talent and looks.

And that brings resentment.

Recently I saw him and his crew rapping a song on social media. Now he’s got a song. Next thing you know Hollywood will be calling and he’ll be in the movies. It’s happened before with fighters such as Art Aragon, the first Golden Boy in the 50s. He was dating movie stars and getting involved with starlets all over Hollywood.

Is history repeating itself or is Garcia creating a new era for boxing?

Since 2016 people claimed he was just a social media creation. Now, after his win over Devin Haney a former undisputed lightweight champion and the WBC super lightweight titleholder, the boxer from the high desert area of Victorville has become one of the highest paid fighters in the world.

Ryan Garcia has entered a new dimension.

Golden Boy Season

After several down years the Los Angeles-based company Golden Boy Promotions suddenly is cracking the whip in 2024.

Avila

Vergil Ortiz Jr. (20-0, 20 KOs) returns to the ring and faces Puerto Rico’s Thomas Dulorme (26-6-1, 17 KOs) a welterweight gatekeeper who lost to Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Eimantas Stanionis. They meet as super welterweights in the co-main event at Save Mart Arena in Fresno, Calif. on Saturday, April 27. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card live.

It’s a quick return to action for Ortiz who is still adjusting to the new weight division. His last fight three months ago ended in less than one round in Las Vegas. It was cut short by an antsy referee and left Ortiz wanting more after more than a year of inactivity in the prize ring.

Ortiz has all the weapons.

Also, Northern California’s Jose Carlos Ramirez (28-1, 18 KOs) meets Cuba’s Rances Barthelemy (30-2-1, 15 KOs) in a welterweight affair set for 12 rounds.

It’s difficult to believe that former super lightweight titlist Ramirez has been written off by fans after only one loss. That was several years ago against Scotland’s Josh Taylor. One loss does not mean the end of a career.

“My goal is to get back on top and to get all those belts back. I still feel like I am one of the best 140-pounders in the division,” said Ramirez who lives in nearby Avenal, Calif.

An added major attraction features Marlen Esparza in a unification rematch against Gabriela “La Chucky” Alaniz for the WBA, WBC, WBO flyweight titles. Their first fight was

a controversial win by Esparza that saw one judge give her nine of 10 rounds in a very close fight. Those Texas judges.

In a match that could steal the show, Oscar Duarte (26-2-1, 21 KOs) faces former world champion Jojo Diaz (33-5-1, 15 KOs) in a lightweight match.

Munguia and Canelo

Don’t sleep on this match.

Its current Golden Boy fighter Jaime Munguia facing former Golden Boy fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in a battle between Mexico’s greatest sluggers next week at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on May 4.

“I think Jaime Munguia is going to do something special in the ring,” said Oscar De La Hoya, the CEO for Golden Boy.

Tijuana’s Munguia showed up at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Hollywood where a throng of media from Mexico and the US met him.

Munguia looked confident and happy about his opportunity to fight great Canelo.

“It’s a hard fight,” said Munguia. “Truth is, its big for Mexico and not only for Mexicans but for boxing.”

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 6 p.m. Yoeniz Tellez (7-0) vs Joseph Jackson (19-0).

Sat. DAZN 9:30 a.m. Peter McGrail (8-1) vs Marc Leach (18-3-1); Beatriz Ferreira (4-0) vs Yanina Del Carmen 14-3).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Vergil Ortiz (20-0) vs Thomas Dulorme (26-6-1); Jose Carlos Ramirez (28-1) vs Rances Barthelemy (30-2-1); Marlen Esparza (14-1) vs Gabriela Alaniz (14-1).

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy Promotions

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Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

3 days ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Ramon-Cardenas-Channels-Micky-Ward-and-KOs-Eduardo-Ramirez-on-ProBox

The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to the liver from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round nine. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

5 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Haney-Garcia-Redux-with-the-Focus-on-Harvey-Dock

Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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