Arne’s Almanac: The Australian Boxing Renaissance and More

A new junior middleweight champion emerged this past Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The World Boxing Organization (which uses the nomenclature junior middleweight instead of super welterweight) had made it known that it planned to strip Jermell Charlo of his 154-pound title for taking the fight with Canelo Alvarez and that adjudication took effect the moment the bell sounded to signify the start of the contest.

Charlo was displaced by Tim Tszyu (pictured) whose first defense of his newly-acquired title comes in less than two weeks when he touches gloves with Albuquerque’s Brian Mendoza at the Gold Coast Convention Center in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia.

There are often hoots of derision when a fighter is anointed a title-holder without actually winning the diadem in the ring, but not in this instance. Tszyu (23-0, 17 KOs) would have been favored over Charlo if they had met and this would have been true even before Jermell’s hollow performance against Canelo.

Earlier that same day, WBO cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia returned to the ring after a 15-month absence and demolished Jordan Thompson at London’s Wembley Arena. Although Opetaia (23-0, 18 KOs) was a massive favorite, he yet turned heads by winning every minute of the fight until it was halted after only 20 seconds of round four.

Australia now has three world title-holders, two of whom (Opetaia and Tszyu) are considered the best fighters in their respective weight classes. The other is Jason Moloney who recently won the WBO bantamweight title vacated by Naoya Inoue. And for whatever it’s worth, the Land Down Under has a fourth title-holder in IBF female bantamweight champion Ebanie Bridges.

There may be more in the pipeline. Sam Goodman (15-0, 7 KOs) is rated #1 at 122 pounds by the IBF and WBO. Tim Tszyu’s younger brother Nikita Tszyu (7-0, 6 KOs) has the look of a future champion and some folks are high on heavyweight Justis Huni (7-0, 4 KOs) who fights later this month in Cancun, Mexico with Andrew Tabiti in the opposite corner.

Things go in cycles and right now this is something of a golden era for Australian boxing.

Weekend Afterthoughts

The Showtime PPV topped by the Canelo-Charlo fight started swimmingly. The lid-lifter between middleweights Elijah Garcia and Jose Armando Resendiz was a doozy. Garcia, a 20-year-old southpaw from the Phoenix area, eventually assumed command and put Resendiz away in the eighth, but not before Resendiz showed that his upset of former title-holder Jarrett Hurd was no fluke.

The show went downhill from there. The second fight, pitting Mario Barrios against Yordenis Ugas, the last man to defeat Manny Pacquiao, wasn’t a bad fight but too one-sided to provide great entertainment. Barrios, who had previously lost to Gervonta Davis and Keith Thurman, got his career back on track with a lopsided 12-round decision.

This reporter anticipated that the co-feature between super welterweights Jesus Ramos and Erickson Lubin would be a stirring battle with Ramos prevailing to maintain his undefeated record. I was wrong on both counts, dead wrong on the “stirring” part.

Far from a fan-friendly scrap, Ramos vs. Lubin was a snoozer. Lubin got the nod and although many thought Ramos was robbed, don’t look for a rematch any time soon. Concocting a sequel would bring back a bad memory.

The main event wasn’t much better. Jermell Charlo has been roundly excoriated on social media for his tepid effort. The folks that ponied up the dough to buy the pay-per-view didn’t get their money’s worth. But that’s boxing, the Theater of the Unexpected as Larry Merchant once phrased it.

The New GGG?

Buried on last Saturday’s Canelo-Charlo undercard was a 6-round contest between super middleweights Bek Nurmaganbet and Abimbola Osundairo. A 25-year-old Kazakh, Nurmaganbet advanced his record to 11-0 with a third-round stoppage. Nine of his wins have come inside the distance including the last seven, all of which ended inside three rounds.

Osundairo, a 30-year-old Chicago-based Nigerian, was a 2021 USA National Champion at 178 pounds. He was 5-0 in the pro ranks. Last year, he returned to his African homeland and won a 12-round contest to claim a regional title. On paper, he was a good match for the Kazakh.

For some readers, the name Osundairo may be vaguely familiar. That’s because he was involved in a bogus fight that became a major news story. The party of the other part, who offered no resistance, was actor Jussie Smollett.

Abimbola and his brother Olabinjo were paid to simulate an attack on Smollett which they carried out at 2 am on Jan. 29, 2019, on a street in downtown Chicago. Smollett, who is black and gay, claimed to be the victim of a hate crime, but developments would show that it was all a hoax. A jury found Smollett guilty on five counts related to the obstruction of justice and he was released on bond when his attorneys filed notice of an appeal.

Although Bek Nurmaganbet has built his record on the backs of no-name opponents, it’s worth noting that only one of those opponents had a losing record. Is he the successor to Gennady Golovkin as the next great KO artist from Kazakhstan? That may be asking too much, but remember his name; he bears watching.

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