A Conversation With Award-Winning Boxing Writer Lance Pugmire

Published

8 months ago

August 27, 2023

Rick Assad

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A masterful storyteller, Lance Pugmire spent nearly two decades covering sports for the Los Angeles Times. He is the most-recent recipient of the prestigious Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism which is presented annually by the Boxing Writers Association of America.

Trustworthy is just one reason why Pugmire has had a successful sports writing career.

“I’d like to think of myself as the type of reporter that the athletes, no matter how high profile they became in their career, they could trust me completely, and that they knew that, yes, I am on the quest for the truth, but I’m also going to allow them to speak their truth while delivering it the way they wanted it delivered,” he said.

Pugmire spoke about the trust Saul “Canelo” Alvarez had in him while Canelo was training for a fight several years ago.

“One time I went to San Diego and Alvarez gave me an interview in English, and I like to think I was the first reporter he spoke to in English,” he said of the boxer who will meet Jermell Charlo on September 30.

Pugmire also built a rapport with Miguel Cotto who had two big matches with Antonio Margarito.

Margarito was accused of using loaded hand-wraps on more than one occasion including his first meeting with Cotto and had his license revoked for one year by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

“I was able to do a lot of reporting on loaded gloves,” Pugmire noted. “When I spoke to Cotto,” he said to me, “he knows about the hand wraps. I will get revenge for this. When he fought him at Madison Square Garden [December 2011] in front of all his people, that was one of the more emotional fights that I covered.” (After Cotto lost to Margarito in July 2008 in Las Vegas via eleventh-round technical knockout, Cotto came back and earned a ninth-round stoppage in the rematch).

While Pugmire is straightforward in his dealings with the men in the ring, so too are they honest with him.

“I’ve always had a soft spot for them. Boxers are always an open book on every level. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Tyson Fury or some young prospect on his way up,” he pointed out. “There’s not a lot of publicists in their ear saying, ‘don’t talk about this and don’t talk about that.’ They always give you their truth and then you report it as you see fit. As a reporter we like to know that it’s not scripted or sugar coated and that’s what I like about boxers.”

Pugmire began his career in 1999 at the Times Inland Valley office. He covered the 2000 Shane Mosley-Oscar De La Hoya fight as a round-by-round reporter and became a full-time boxing writer in 2007 with the Israel Vasquez-Rafael Marquez tussle.

Pugmire enjoyed his tenure at the Times, but felt a tugging to try something different.

“I absolutely loved my 19 years at the Los Angeles Times – so many amazing experiences and unforgettable stories that we nailed,” he said. “I’ve always sought to continue challenging myself. Because of my earnings there and The Athletic, I was able to experience real estate investment, which led me to a new career that is still all about learning people’s stories and helping them reach a better place. Not ever taking myself out of my comfort zone would have been my ultimate regret.”

To this end, Pugmire recently moved into a career selling high-end property for Seven Gables Real Estate/MX Associates in Huntington Beach after nearly two decades at the Los Angeles Times.

While boxing doesn’t hold sway like it once did, there are weekends when the sport is still important, such as the night Crawford faced Spence at T-Mobile Arena.

“The powers that be who run boxing know that staging these great fights is the best thing for the sport’s future. So, when we can get these fights, everybody knows this is the fight that should be happening,” Pugmire noted. “Then boxing still has the ability to capture the mainstream sports fans and get complete attention on that Saturday fight night. That is still the great thing about boxing. Boxing will never die as long as it is giving fans that moment.”

Crawford-Spence turned out to be lopsided in favor of Crawford who won on a ninth-round stoppage, notes Pugmire, but it still created significant buzz because it did take place after a lot of earlier wrangling.

“When Spence said, ‘Unless you’re going to bring me a Crawford fight, I’m not going to fight,” he [he showed that he] understands what this sport is about…For Spence, he believed I’m the naturally bigger man, I am the more skilled man, and I can win this fight. As tough as Crawford is and an undefeated three-division champion, we all know Terence is one of the great finishers of this generation. For Spence to take on this fight, he has to be given a lot of credit.”

Boxing will always have a place in the sun even if it’s not at the top of the food chain.

“To me, there’s no better example, so let’s just go global,” Pugmire said. “Manny Pacquiao sold rice on the streets so he and his family could eat. If it wasn’t for boxing, what would have become of Pacquiao? This is someone who, with his money, with his power, is elevated to political office and is doing everything that he can to help his fellow humans in the Philippines escape the ravages of poverty. We all know this [boxing] isn’t good for someone’s health. Absolutely not.”

Pugmire was able to cozy up to Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr., who were two very opposite personalities.

“The creativity and the power that we saw from Pacquiao as he moved through these divisions was such an impressive thing to cover. Same thing with Mayweather. His defensive acumen and his brilliance of being able to figure out whatever opponent was set before him. Even if it was to his advantage to handpick guys like a 23-year-old Alvarez or an over-the-hill Oscar De La Hoya,” he said. “The fact is that he did it. [We all who covered Floyd’s career] know that there were many tough fights against guys like Jose Luis Castillo that he took that were 50-50 endeavors, and even his fight against Marcos Maidana, that was a tough task. He found a way to get the victory. He fought Cotto and Juan Manuel Marquez. The guy deserves to be credited. In my eyes, it’s not a sin how he handled his career.”

The May 2015 bout between Pacquiao and Mayweather was a dud in terms of entertainment, but an immense money-maker.

Pugmire recalls being inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena that evening.

“To me, when I see these two guys, I always go back to that moment when I looked up right before the first bell rang and they were both bouncing in each other’s corner right before it went down,” he recalled. “Wow, it was one of the most electric moments that I can ever remember.”

Pugmire no longer covers boxing full-time but still keeps track of the sport. As a contributor to the boxing website ppv.com, he covered the Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia battle and the Terence Crawford-Errol Spence Jr. showdown.

He’s honored that the Boxing Writers Association of America deemed his block of work worthy of being included with the best writers to have spent time ringside.

“The thing that really struck me after looking at the past winners was who had won the Fleischer before me and how deeply I’ve been influenced by past winners,” he said. “Growing up in Phoenix, I read Norm Frauenheim in grade school. When I moved to Orange County to go to college [majoring in communications with an emphasis in journalism] at Cal State Fullerton, I read Mark Whicker. My sports editor at the Los Angeles Times that brought me downtown from a satellite office in Ontario was Bill Dwyer. I’m very close to Dan Rafael.”

Pugmire then spoke about the obligation all reporters have.

“These guys were never beholden to any particular side. They were not shills. They spoke their truth. They were obligated to the readers,” he said. “I was there to tell the truth and I do love the sport and I was there to communicate what their stories were in the most truthful, elegant and dignified way that I could. That enough people on this committee noticed my work is a great honor. They said, ‘You belong among us.’”

And now he does.

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

Published

23 hours 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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