The Dempsey-Gibbons Fiasco: An Odd Duck in Boxing’s Rollicking Summer of ‘23

Published

10 months ago

June 27, 2023

The-Dempsey-Gibbons-Fiasco-An-Odd-Duck-in-Boxing's-Rollicking-Summer-of-'23

This coming Fourth of July marks the 100^th anniversary of one of the oddest promotions in boxing history, the heavyweight championship fight between Jack Dempsey and Tommy Gibbons in remote Shelby, Montana. TSS special correspondent Rich Blake, an authority on prizefighting during the so-called Golden Age of Sports, looks back at that bizarre event.

Around midnight one evening in mid-May of 1923, the 20th Century Limited, crown jewel of American passenger rail travel, came streaking through central New York’s Mohawk Valley en route to Chicago.

Riding in a luxury Pullman car was Jack “Doc” Kearns, a focal point of the sporting world as he attempted to pull off one of the most outlandish sporting schemes ever conceived. A raconteur in a flashy suit, Kearns was the manager of Jack Dempsey, the world heavyweight champion. Throughout that night, the 40-year-old Kearns played cards with scoop-hungry scribes and an old friend, Benny Leonard, then reigning lightweight champion.

Before climbing aboard, Kearns reportedly had arranged for one final meeting with the fight game’s foremost promoter, George “Tex” Rickard, who not only ran Madison Square Garden but also had wangled permission to stage outdoor bouts that summer at the newly opened, 58,000-seat Yankee Stadium.

Garrulous, manipulative, Kearns was sticking it to Rickard by way of an ambitious plot to circumvent the boxing world’s Mecca. Kearns had arranged to stage Dempsey’s next fight – a July 4th championship extravaganza against Tommy Gibbons – in the middle of nowhere. A 34-year-old light heavyweight from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, Gibbons was known for his speed and clever tactics.

Rickard didn’t flinch. At age 53, the former gold prospector and casino operator was under siege by headline writers, not to mention state boxing authorities, over a string of sensational scandals, including ticket gouging allegations.

Nevertheless, Rickard was quietly reasserting control over the lease on the Garden (the property was owned by the New York Life Insurance Company) and holding sway over issues such as who should challenge Dempsey for the title, where would that fight be held, and how much the least expensive tickets would cost?

Kearns connivingly outmuscled Rickard (and his hefty cut of the gate) earlier that spring by striking a deal with a group of Shelby, Montana, oil field operators reimagining their cowpoke settlement near the Canadian border as the host of a world-class sporting event.

Kearns insisted on a $300,000 payday, extracting one-third of it up front. Shelby’s residents tapped all possible resources to get the money together and started scrambling to build a giant wooden stadium. All the while, Kearns was still playing the angles.

So, was Rickard willing to match the Shelby offer?

“I wouldn’t pay a nickel to see Tommy Gibbons,” Rickard reportedly said, turning Kearns down.

What eventually played out in remote northwest Montana in that rollicking summer of ’23 remains the stuff of cultural lore, a glorious fiasco that is still talked- about one century later.

***

The decade that roared, as of the midpoint of 1923, was not yet in full-throated form, at least in terms of sheer, unbridled jazz-and-hooch-infused zeitgeist energy.

Dempsey’s exploits dominated headlines. But boxing was teeming with colorful characters and contenders. Talented fighters in every weight class made a living competing in rings found in virtually every city in every state.

To rediscover this specific, fascinating slice of a so-called “golden age” is both an intoxicating thrill-ride and a sobering wake-up call. Boxing dominated society as it never had before, and reflected it, for better and for worse.

An endlessly rich tapestry of pugilistic storylines filled the pages of magazines such as The Police Gazette, The Ring and The Boxing Blade. Two dozen or more sportswriters were on the beat – just in New York City, where every neighborhood had its champion. It was a flag of ethnic pride, as Jack Newfield once explained to PBS. “Rivalries were built on ethnic tension,” he said. “You could get ten thousand people for a fight between two neighborhood heroes.”

Boxing flourished almost everywhere. In New York City, each of the five boroughs had multiple boxing clubs. A regional city, such as Buffalo, N.Y., supported two major boxing events per week at the 10,000-seat Broadway Auditorium. Fighters could earn a decent living in the middle-tier markets all while hoping to catch the attention of some manager or matchmaker in the Big Town. A Boxing Blade issue from around this time chronicled a week’s worth of noteworthy fights in New York and Boston, Detroit and Philadelphia, Buffalo and Milwaukee, as well as in Erie, Pa., Sandusky, Ohio, Newark, N.J., Staten Island, N.Y., Flint, Mich., Wichita, Kan., Springfield, Ill. and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, just to list a small sample of locales during one seven-day stretch.

Summertime, the outdoor season – that’s when the brightest stars came out to shine. Fights were staged at ballparks, velodromes and seaside resorts.

After boxing in New York was re-legalized under the liberal Walker Law in 1920, it exploded into a full-fledged industry with its informal headquarters at Madison Square Garden, operated by Rickard. The bulk of his public relations wound up essentially outsourced to a murderers row of syndicated sportswriters – Damon Runyon and Grantland Rice, to name two of the most iconic.

Stephen Dubner, co-author of the popular “Freakonomics” book series, unearthed research by the American Society of Newspaper Editors that showed one out of four readers bought a paper for the sports page. The editors voted Dempsey the “greatest stimulation to circulation in twenty years.”

***

Of course, no retrospective on boxing circa the summer of ’23 can sidestep a fight that should have been – but never was.

Dempsey always insisted he was open to taking on black opponents. The leading heavyweight challenger heading into that summer of ’23 was 34-year-old Harry Wills, dubbed the world’s “colored” heavyweight champion. As such, Wills proved a reliable draw among white audiences, provided he took on a black challenger.

Wills was a burly ex-dockworker from New Orleans, transplanted from the Big Easy to the Big Apple. He was growing old waiting for authorities to force Dempsey to accept his challenge. Frustrated, his career going in circles (he fought Sam Langford at least 17 times), Wills would eventually align himself with a couple of Irishmen. He sought out a new manager, Paddy Mullins, a Bowery bar owner who grew up staging backroom fights, and who was old friends with a Queens promoter named Simon Flaherty who was keen to build a stadium suitable for putting on Dempsey-Wills.

The stadium, situated across from Manhattan in Long Island City, got built, got shut down by the fire department, was refurbished and then re-opened. But Wills’ title shot never happened.

Historians have blamed public sentiment alongside powerful figures such as Rickard (who once supposedly, infamously, told one financial backer the title would be worthless if a black man ever won it) and William Muldoon, the head of the New York Boxing Commission, an avowed opponent of interracial matches in his younger days.

(In Edward Van Every’s biography of Muldoon, “The Solid Man of Sport,” there’s a reference — repeated in Roger Kahn’s biography of Dempsey, “A Flame of Pure Fire” — to a Dempsey-Wills championship match supposedly, at least momentarily, having been made by Rickard who penciled in the Polo Grounds, a sporting coliseum near Yankee Stadium, as a possible location. But the white establishment of 1923 so loathed the thought of a black champion that the idea was quashed. And while the Muldoon-led boxing governing body at one point publicly demanded Dempsey sign papers to fight Wills or forfeit his crown — curiously flouting formal and informal rules forbidding mixed-race bouts — there were also reports that, concurrently, behind the scenes, Albany politicians pressured Muldoon and Rickard to scrap the idea.)

Additionally, Montreal was also considered as a location until, per Van Every, Her Majesty’s government quietly intervened.

Wills had defended what sports pages called his colored heavyweight championship in the fall of ’22 against Clem Johnson at Madison Square Garden (then located on Twenty-Second Street). Wills knocked him out in front of 10,000 fans. Sportswriters were divided on the top contender’s performance. “The giant New Orleans black challenger for the world’s heavyweight boxing title, held by Jack Dempsey, last night battered his way to victory,” the New York Times said.

“That dismal exhibition put up by Harry Wills against Clem Johnson in the Garden may have been the one thing needed to make a Dempsey-Wills bout possible,” the New York Sun said. “Jack Kearns has been telling the boys that Wills has gone back so far that he is not one-fourth as good as he was a few years ago.”

Kearns may have been right, the newspaper added. “But it is possible that he does not pay as much attention to the fact that Wills did not train very seriously for the Johnson affair. With two or three months of real training under his belt, Harry may prove to be a different sort of a fighter.”

So, sportswriters of the day wanted to see Dempsey-Wills and treated “The Black Panther” as a legitimate challenger, stoking curiosity in a bout supposedly the public did not want to see.

As Boxing Scene once put it, citing historian Kevin Smith, Wills’ primary asset was his strength.

“He could move other men around the ring as he pleased,” Smith said.

Considered a top contender for almost seven years, Wills never could fathom or accept being denied a title shot.

“No number one contender could be ignored for that long today,” Smith said. “But the racial tones of that time simply would not allow such a bout.”

Kahn would write that with Rickard, “the issue was money, not prejudice. Or, anyway, money before prejudice.”

***

The scuttling of the Dempsey-Wills match, were it ever really in the cards to begin with, opened the door to a curious chain of events that led to one of the craziest boxing tales of all time.

Loy J. Molumby, an ex-fighter pilot and the cowboy-boots-wearing head of Montana’s American Legion, tracked down Dempsey’s manager in a New York hotel, after being stood-up in Chicago. Molumby carried with him a satchel filled with $100,000. It was the one-third (of the total guaranteed $300,000) that Kearns had demanded up front before he would even discuss such a preposterous concept.

Shelby’s residents tapped all possible resources to get the money together and started scrambling to make arrangements. Roads needed paving. The little railroad depot needed to be expanded. A local lumberyard sprang for $80,000 worth of pine boards for the hasty construction of an open-air octagon.

In 1923, Shelby was a community with “visions – delusions, as it turned out – of boom-town grandeur,” said Jeff Welsch, a Montana sportswriter. Three years earlier, according to the decadal census, fewer than 600 people lived there.

Did we mention there were no paved roads?

An oil strike on a nearby ranch the previous year sparked fantasies of Shelby as the “Tulsa of the West,” according to Welsch.

After giving Rickard a chance to match the Shelby offer, Kearns headed off to rendezvous with Dempsey who was doing some fly fishing on the Missouri River.

The plan was to meet at a training camp being established on the grounds of an old roadhouse on the outskirts of Great Falls, Montana, some 90 miles south of the proposed site of the Independence Day spectacle. The Dempsey faction – Jack’s brother, Johnny, the trainers, and a bull terrier mascot – were preparing the camp. Meanwhile, Kearns put together a deep stable of sparring partners, 17 and counting. Kearns wanted speedy fighters to get the champ prepared for Gibbons, known for being fast with his punches, but Kearns was also widening his talent stable. Red Carr, manager of then-19-year-old Jimmy Slattery, a future light heavyweight champion, would be enticed by an offer from Kearns to send his then-ripening speed boy out to Great Falls, but Red, after giving his blessing, reversed course and nixed the idea.

As for the July 4th heavyweight championship fight staged in the tiny town of Shelby, Montana, it would rank among the most monumental fiascos in the history of sports.

Molumby paid up the second $100,000 installment two months before the fight.

With a week to go, the mayor of Shelby visited Kearns in Great Falls. They only had $1,600 of the final payment. Might he consider accepting 50,000 sheep instead of hard cash?

Dempsey, listless in training, beat, but never dominated Gibbons in a tedious affair witnessed by fewer than 20,000 spectators, half of whom crashed the gates.

The temperature at ringside was close to 100 degrees.

The big takeaway: Dempsey, two years idle from ring activities, failed to knock Gibbons out.

Dempsey and Kearns, along with an armed security detail, fled the scene as fast as they could by private train.

Kearns got out of town with the gate receipts. The banks of Shelby, which had underwritten the event, went bankrupt.

As for Tommy Gibbons, who wound up with nothing, he went on to become the long-serving sheriff of Minnesota’s Ramsey County, home to the State Capitol of St. Paul. As for Dempsey, he would soon journey back east to begin training for his next opponent Luis Angel Firpo, but that’s a story for another day.

Editor’s postscript: The population of Shelby is now a shade over 3,000. The locals no longer consider the fight a civic embarrassment, but rather as something to commemorate. This year, the July 4 festivities will be wrapped around the centennial of Shelby’s “Fight of the Century.” Months of planning have gone into making this Shelby’s grandest Fourth of July ever. Contact the Shelby Area Chamber of Commerce (406-434-7184) for more information.

Rich Blake is a journalist and the author of four non-fiction books, including 2015’s “Slats: The Legend & Life of Jimmy Slattery.”

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 283: Canelo and Munguia Battle for Mexico and More Fight News

Published

5 hours ago

May 2, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 283: Canelo and Munguia Battle for Mexico and More Fight News

Prepare for Mexican war.

Guadalajara’s Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (60-2-2, 39 KOs) fights Tijuana’s Jaime Munguia (43-0, 34 KOs) in another Mexican war on Saturday, May 4, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. PPV.COM and Prime pay-per-view will stream the card.

“I’m going to win, I’m going to prevail and it’s going to be decisive,” said Alvarez, a four-division world titlist. “I’m different. I’m Canelo.”

Munguia reveres Canelo.

“Outside the ring he has all my respect,” Munguia said. “Inside the ring, respect goes out the window. And that’s what is going to happen on Saturday night.”

If you know Mexican history, wars between different regions of that country took place even before Hernando Cortes arrived with his Spanish Conquistadores.

During the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910 you had Porfirio Diaz, Francisco Madero, Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata and then came Victoriano Huerta, Venustiano Carranza, Pascual Orozco, and Alvaro Obregon as players.

Fighting between regions in Mexico is not a new thing.

In boxing the 1960s brought those Mexican wars to California with guys like Vicente Saldivar, Cuban exile Sugar Ramos, Chango Carmona, and in the 70s Chucho Castillo, Jesus Pimentel, and the great Ruben Olivares.

Perhaps the two greatest battles between Mexican warriors saw Carlos Zarate and Alfonso Zamora battle in the Inglewood Forum. Both Mexican bantamweights held world titles and each were undefeated with all knockouts.

It was a madhouse that April night in 1977. During the action a wannabe wrestler jumped into the boxing ring during the action and was tossed out like a rag doll by a security gang. When Zarate eventually knocked out Zamora in the fourth, Zamora’s father chased after Zarate’s trainer Cuyo Hernandez right there. Explosions from cherry bombs rocked the arena and a mini riot took place.

Later, in the 80s and 90s, we saw Julio Cesar Chavez batter fellow Mexican sluggers like Jose Luis Ramirez, Rafael “Bazooka” Limon and then Miguel Angel Gonzalez who fought the great Julio Cesar Chavez to a draw in Mexico City.

These battles between Mexicans are never easy.

Canelo has been the top Mexicano for the past 10 years and among the best pound-for-pound fighters for just as long. In his career that began when he was a mere 15 years old, he’s reached heights never before attained by any other Mexican fighter.

His three wars with Gennady “GGG” Golovkin will be etched in history as among the best. His last fight eight months ago saw the redhead dominate Jermell Charlo for a win by unanimous decision.

Alvarez has one of the best chins in boxing history.

Munguia arrived like a burglar in the night. He was unceremoniously packed off to fight New Yorker Sadam Ali for the WBO super welterweight title in a New York card. Ali had just beaten the great Miguel Cotto for the title and was expected to have a long run. His first defense was against little-known Munguia and he was bludgeoned by the tall Mexican in four rounds.

The surprise win by Tijuana’s Munguia made him the toast of the country. He was barely 20 and many liked his easy-going manner and will to destroy once the bell rang. After his fifth title defense it was apparent he could not make 154 pounds anymore and moved up. Five fights later he could not make 160 pounds. Now he’s at 168 pounds but one man holds all the belts and that’s fellow countryman Canelo Alvarez.

Like Canelo, Munguia has one of the best chins in boxing.

“Canelo is a great fighter with experience against great fighters,” Munguia said. “But what I have is youth on my side.”

Since working under Erik Morales and now Freddie Roach, his technique in defensive skills has improved dramatically from his days as a super welterweight. Back then Munguia would take a sledge-hammer blow or two and then return with a barrage of his own.

Last year Munguia fought the feared Sergiy Derevyanchenko through 12 of the most savage rounds ever seen. It was the Fight of the Year and established the Tijuana fighter as someone worthy of watching.

“You can expect a full-out Mexican war,” said Munguia during the press conference on Wednesday.

“I’m very proud to be here and to make history with both Mexican fighters fighting for the four belts for the first time,” said Alvarez the undisputed super middleweight champion.

Although this is a battle between Mexicans the whole boxing world will be watching.

PPV.COM

Jim Lampley leads his crew again on the Canelo-Munguia fight card on Saturday May 4. The famed boxing analyst will be doing a play-by-play of the fights and also participating via text. Accompanying him will be Lance Pugmire, Chris Algieri and Dan Canobbio.

During the past nine months they’ve covered several of the best boxing cards. Lampley has a unique style and has covered the biggest fight events in the past five decades.

Riverside Fights

Undefeated middleweight prospect Raul Lizarraga leads a Red Boxing card on Friday May 3, at the Riverside Municipal Auditorium in downtown Riverside, Calif.

Lizarraga (12-0, 12 KOs) meets Puerto Rico’s Marcos Osorio-Betancourt (11-1-1, 8 KOs) in the main event for a regional title. There are seven other bouts tentatively scheduled. Doors open at 5 p.m. For tickets go to Ticketmaster.com.

Monster Inoue

Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue (26-0, 23 KOs) defends the super bantamweight championship against Mexico’s Luis “Pantera” Nery (35-1, 27 KOs) on Monday. May 6, at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo. ESPN + will stream the Top Rank card that begins at 1 a.m.

Many rate Inoue the top fighter pound-for-pound. His destruction of titleholders Marlon Tapales and Stephen Fulton were clear samples of his overall superiority in his weight division. At 31, he faces two-division champion Nery who recently engaged in a riveting battle against Azat Hovhannisyan in Southern California.

The card also features three other world title bouts.

Fights to Watch

Sat. PPV.Com, Prime PPV 5 p.m. Saul Alvarez (60-2-2) vs Jaime Munguia (43-0). Brandon Figueroa (24-1-1) vs Jesse Magdaleno (29-2); Mario Barrios (28-2) vs Fabian Maidana (22-2); Eimantas Stanionis (14-0) vs Gabriel Maestre (6-0-1).

Mon. ESPN+ 1 a.m. Naoya Inoue (26-0) vs Luis Nery (35-1); Jason Moloney (27-2) vs Yoshiki Takei (8-0); Takuma Inoue (19-1) vs Sho Ishida (34-3); Seigo Yuri Akui (19-2-1) vs Taku Kuwahara (13-1).

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A Closer Look at Weslaco ‘Heartbreaker’ Brandon Figueroa and an Early Peek at Inoue vs Nery

Published

2 days ago

April 30, 2024

Arne K. Lang

A Closer Look at Weslaco ‘Heartbreaker’ Brandon Figueroa and an Early Peek at Inoue vs Nery

Brandon Figueroa returns to the ring on Saturday after a 14-month absence. He meets Jessie Magdaleno in a 12-round featherweight affair at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas with the winner potentially headed to a match with Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue. Figueroa vs. Magdaleno will be part of the four-fight pay-per-view telecast topped by Canelo Alvarez’s super middleweight title defense against Jaime Munguia.

Akin to Magdaleno, Figueroa (24-1-1, 18 KOs) is a former super bantamweight (122-pound) champion. He won the WBA version of the world title with a 10^th-round stoppage of Damien Vazquez and added the WBC belt with a seventh-round KO of previously undefeated Luis Nery who fights Inoue this coming Monday at the “Big Egg” in Tokyo.

Throughout history, many prominent boxers have been identified with the place that hewed them. Students of boxing history can identify the Saginaw Kid, the Terror Haute Terror, the Cincinnati Cobra – the list is long – and even casual fans can name the Brockton Blockbuster, the immortal Rocky Marciano.

Brandon Figueroa hails from Weslaco, a small city in the southern tip of Texas. It is part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, commonly abbreviated RGV, and the locals feel an emotional tie to the entire valley, a place where the unofficial language among the adult population is Spanglish, a melding of Spanish and English.

Brandon’s older brother Omar Figueroa Jr, who retired in 2022 with a record of 28-3-1 after losing his last three fights, became a local hero after becoming the first boxer from the Valley to win a world title, in his case the WBC lightweight diadem. Brandon, 27, has the opportunity to out-do him by becoming the first boxer from the Valley to win titles in two weight divisions.

The brothers were introduced to boxing by their father, Omar Figueroa Sr. A mailman now in his twenty-seventh year working for the U.S. Postal Service, the elder Figueroa never boxed but followed the sport closely and hoped that one of his sons would follow in the footsteps of his sporting heroes Julio Cesar Chavez and the late Salvador Sanchez. Brandon borrowed a page from the Chavez playbook when he scored his signature win over Luis Nery. A left to the solar plexus ended the match. Nery replied with a sweeping left hook, but it was all instinct. In a delayed reaction, he crumpled to the canvas after launching the errant punch and was counted out.

Although Omar Sr has a picture in his cell phone of Brandon in fighting togs when Brandon was two years old, he insists that he discouraged his younger son from pursuing a career in boxing. “He was too skinny and didn’t have Omar’s natural talent,” the elder Figueroa told this reporter when we chatted at Las Vegas’ Pound4Pound Boxing Gym. “Then, when Brandon was about 12 or 13, he started hurting bigger boys with punches to the body in sparring and I thought, hold on, maybe I have something here.”

Omar Sr. opened a gym, Pantera Boxing, to give his sons a leg up and eventually enough kids from the neighborhood started coming by to field an amateur boxing team.

Omar Figueroa Sr was born in Northern Mexico and came to the United States at age nine. Many of his siblings – he was one of nine children — reside in Mexico but close enough for family get-togethers. The Figueroa family has crossed the international bridge that connects the two countries on many occasions. Returning to Weslaco, they share the span with border-crossers seeking refuge in the United States.

“One of the things I’ve noticed,” says Brandon, “is that there are a lot more Europeans crossing over that bridge into the U.S. than we used to see, especially people from countries like Russia and Ukraine.”

About that nickname: Brandon acquired it while visiting relatives in Rio Bravo, Mexico, situated roughly 18 miles from Weslaco. He was just a boy, perhaps 11 or 12, and it was teenage or pre-teen girls who affixed the “Heartbreaker” label to him. Indeed, in the looks department, he could give Ryan Garcia a run for his money. (Back off, ladies, Brandon has a steady girlfriend.)

Brandon Figueroa doesn’t want boxing to define him. “I’m also a businessman,” he says, noting that he owns several parcels of Weslaco real estate and owns stock in one of his sponsors, LOCK’DIN, a start-up, high-performance beverage company whose Board of Directors includes Manny Pacquiao.

Brandon Pacquiao

In high school, Brandon took classes in theater. He has a role in a forthcoming Amazon Prime movie, “Find Me,” and a starring role in the first episode of the reconstituted “Tales from the Crypt” which will air on HBO Max.

When Brandon quits boxing, will Hollywood beckon? “I can’t imagine settling down anywhere but in the Valley,” he says. “The Valley will always be a part of me.”

In his last outing, Figueroa won an interim WBC featherweight title with a lopsided decision over Mark Magsayo. In theory, that boosted him into a fight with Rey Vargas who was allowed to keep his WBC featherweight title after moving up to 130 where he suffered his first defeat at the hands of O’Shaquie Foster. But in boxing, “money” trumps “mandatory” and Vargas jumped at the chance to fight in Saudi Arabia where he was fortunate to retain his title when he received a draw in his match with Liverpool’s Nick Ball.

The most lucrative fight out there would be a match with four-belt super bantamweight champion and pound-for-pound king Naoya Inoue who has expressed an interest in moving up to featherweight after disposing of Luis Nery. Yes, that’s putting the cart before the horse, but Brandon Figueroa thinks the challenger from Tijuana, despite his impressive record (35-1-1, 27 KOs) has scant chance of winning. “I found a hole in Nery’s style,” he said, “and knew that once fatigue set in for him, he would be mine.”

Inoue vs. Nery is a very big deal in Japan in part because there’s a hero and a villain. Luis Nery is the only man to defeat the popular Shinsuke Yamanaka, a long-reigning title-holder who quit the sport after Nery knocked him out twice. After their first meeting, Nery’s “A” and “B” samples tested positive for a banned substance and he came in three pounds overweight for the rematch (a substantial edge in a small weight class), for which he was suspended and dropped from the WBC rankings. Nery, wrote TSS correspondent Tamas Pradarics, “repeatedly cheated on the Japanese in ugly and disgusting ways,” and the Japanese haven’t forgotten.

If Brandon Figueroa goes off to Japan some day to oppose Naoya Inoue, it will take some doing to contort him into a villain. “I love the Japanese people and the Japanese culture,” he says, “the whole Samurai thing which is so in tune with the warrior spirit of Mexicans.”

—

The pay-per-view portion of Saturday’s show is available for purchase on various cable and satellite platforms including Prime Video, DAZN.com, and PPV.com. First bell is slated for 8 pm ET/5 pm PT.

Brandon Figueroa vs. Jessie Magdaleno will be the second bout on the four-fight PPV program. It will follow the WBA world welterweight title fight between Eimantas Stanionis and Gabriel Maestre and will precede the WBC interim world welterweight title fight between Mario Barrios and Fabian Maidana.

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Ramirez Outpoints Barthelemy and Vergil Ortiz Scores Another Fast KO in Fresno

Published

5 days ago

April 27, 2024

David A. Avila

Ramirez-Outpoints-Barthelemy-and-Vergil-Ortiz-Scores-Another-Fast-KO-in-Fresno

Northern California favorite Jose Ramirez avoided an upset and knockout artist Vergil Ortiz destroyed his opponent on Saturday to set up a showdown with Australia’s power-punching Tim Tszyu.

After a 13-month layoff Ramirez (29-1, 18 KOs) shook off ring rust and avoided an upset by Cuba’s Rances Barthelemy (30-3-1, 15 KOs) in a battle between former world champions at Save Mart Center in Fresno.

It was Ramirez’s first bout under Golden Boy Promotions and he was nearly derailed by the slick counter-punching southpaw in the third and six rounds with laser left counters that connected every time. Though he was floored in the third round it was ruled a push down by referee Jack Reiss.

Fans gasped.

“He throws that left hand and I got hit with it in one round,” Ramirez said. “It motivated him.”

Once Ramirez figured out the remedy, he kept the fight inside and attacked the body and head. Barthelemy was unable to uncork one of his long lefts at close distance.

From the seventh round on the former super lightweight champion took control and kept the Cuban fighter against the ropes and unloaded shots to the body and head. He nearly forced a stoppage in the 11^th round.

Barthelemy survived but all three judges scored it big for Ramirez after 12 rounds: 119-109 twice and 118-110.

Vergil KOs Number 21

Knowing a win sets up a massive showdown against Aussie slugger Tim Tszyu, the Texas slugger Vergil Ortiz (21-0, 21 KOs) wasted no time in blasting out Puerto Rico’s Thomas Dulorme (26-7-1, 17 KOs) with a perfectly placed left hook to the body. Dulorme collapsed to the ground in agony.

Referee Tom Taylor stopped counting at 2:39 of the first round.

“It was a very calculated punch,” Ortiz said.

It was a commanding one round performance that sets up the showdown against the equally powerful Tszyu who despite losing a split decision to Sebastian Fundora last month by split decision, retains his reputation as a dangerous puncher.

Ortiz, who has 21 knockouts in 21 fights, will probably be fighting Tszyu in Los Angeles on June 1 if all negotiations go smoothly.

“Tim (Tszyu) I know you are watching the fight,” said Ortiz. “I’m ready. Let’s put on a great performance.”

Other Bouts

Oscar Duarte (27-2-1, 22 KOs) proved his knockout loss against Ryan Garcia would not stop him from improving as he defeated Jojo Diaz (33-6-1) by knockout at 2:32 of the ninth round in a super lightweight match. Referee Michael Margado wisely stopped the bludgeoning as a towel came flying in almost simultaneously.

It was the first time Diaz was ever defeated by knockout, though he never touched the canvas. It was also the first time Duarte trained with Robert Garcia and the difference was notable as he repeatedly walked through incoming fire and attacked the smaller fighter continuously.

“I want to fight the best in the world,” Duarte said.

Female Title Fight

A rematch battle for the flyweight championship saw Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz (15-1) defeat Marlen Esparza (14-2) this time with a two-fisted attack to win by split decision after 10 rounds.

Esparza failed to make weight and walked in three pounds overweight and Alaniz took advantage to win the WBA, WBC, and WBO flyweight titles in the rematch. Once again the scores were puzzling but this time in favor of Alaniz 97-93, 96-94, and 92-98.

Alaniz now holds the WBO, WBA, WBC flyweight world titles.

Welterweights

Mexico’s Raul Curiel (15-0, 13 KOs) busted body shots on Jorge Marron Jr. (20-5-2) and floored him twice in the first round. The second body blow left Marron paralyzed and unable to continue at 1:31 of the first round as referee Thomas Taylor counted him out.

Curiel, who is managed by Frank Espinoza and son, proved he’s ready for the upper levels of the welterweight division.

“I think I’m ready for the bigger names,” Curiel said. “You see the results.”

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy

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