The Hauser Report: Showtime Says Goodbye to Boxing and More Notes

Published

7 months ago

December 17, 2023

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On October 17, Paramount Global announced that it was closing the Showtime sports department and shutting down the network’s boxing program after a 37-year run.

Showtime televised its first fight on March 15, 1986 – a replay of Marvelous Marvin Hagler’s eleventh-round knockout of John Mugabi five days earlier. In the years that followed, it televised more than two thousand fights. In the early-1990’s, the network turned its boxing programming over to Don King in order to gain rights to Mike Tyson’s fights. More recently, Premier Boxing Champions enjoyed favored status.

Showtime was the launching pad for UK imports like Naseem Hamed, Ricky Hatton, and Joe Calzaghe in the United States. Its most notable telecasts included numerous Mike Tyson outings, the first fight between Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo, Floyd Mayweather vs. Canelo Alvarez, and the “Super Six” super-middleweight championship tournament that saw the emergence of Andre Ward as the best 168-pound fighter in the world. It collaborated with HBO to produce Lennox Lewis vs. Mike Tyson, Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao, and Anthony Joshua vs. Wladimir Klitschko, and advanced the careers of myriad young prospects on ShoBox: The New Generation.

Steve Albert, Ferdie Pacheco, Al Bernstein, Steve Farhood, Barry Tompkins, Nick Charles, and Paulie Malignaggi were among the quality commentators who contributed to the soundtrack that the network provided for the contemporary boxing scene.

Less laudably, Showtime reveled in the highly lucrative but homophobic-misogynistic-fueled promotion of Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor. And in recent years, it shifted an increasing number of fan-friendly fights from “regular” Showtime to Showtime-PPV.

Like HBO, Showtime ended its sojourn through boxing with a mundane fight card. HBO’s final offering (on December 8, 2018) was a pedestrian event that featured Cecelia Braekhus, Claressa Shields, and Juan Francisco Estrada. On December 16, Showtime gave us David Morrell vs. Sena Agbeko, Chris Colbert vs. Jose Valenzuela, and Andre Berto vs. Robert Guerrero.

The show opened with Berto-Guerrero. Berto has won two fights dating back to 2015 and had last fought more than five years ago. Guerrero had lost five of eleven bouts dating back to 2013. Both men are forty years old and, on Saturday night, they fought like it. Guerrero won a 99-91, 98-92, 98-92 decision over the course of ten dreary rounds.

Then Jose Valenzuela (who was coming in off two losses in a row) knocked Chris Colbert unconscious with a right hook in round six.

In the finale, David Morrell (a 12-to-1 favorite) stopped a woefully overmatched Sena Agbeko at 1:43 of the second stanza. Agbeko was never in the fight.

The telecast began with a short video montage of images from past Showtime fights followed by remarks about the occasion from Brian Custer. After Berto-Guerrero, there was a brief video tribute to the sport of boxing. Later in the telecast, Steve Farhood narrated a segment on the history of ShoBox.

The members of the announcing team spent a lot of time praising each other. There was no acknowledgement of Jay Larkin (a key architect of Showtime’s boxing program). Nor was Steve Albert (Showtime’s blow-by-blow commentator for twenty years) or Ferdie Pacheco (who was paired with Albert) mentioned. A tip of the hat to Ken Hershman (who succeeded Larkin as president of Showtime Sports), Don King (who was a big part of Showtime Boxing), and other key figures in the network’s boxing program who were ignored would also have been appropriate.

But back to the fights. Goodbyes are important. It would have been better if Showtime Boxing had ended its run with its November 25, 2023, telecast of David Benavidez vs. Demetrius Andrade. Benavidez turned in a star-making performance that night. That would have been a good note to end on with Showtime telling its subscribers, “We brought you some great moments in the past. Now here’s a glimpse of boxing’s future.”

****

There was a time when club fights were boxing’s lifeblood and New York City was home to several fight cards each week. On the night that Showtime bade farewell to the sweet science, Larry Goldberg promoted his ninth club-fight card at Sony Hall in New York.

Goldberg is the only promoter now running fight cards on a regular basis in New York. This was his ninth show at Sony Hall in the past fourteen months and he has three dates penciled in for the first six months of 2024.

Too many club fights cards today consist almost exclusively of non-competitive beatdowns. Two of the six fights on Goldberg’s card were particularly good match-ups.

Jacob Riley Solis (a 32-year-old New Yorker who was making his pro debut) took on Tevin Terrance (a 1-and-0 import from Canada). Terrance fought with all-out aggression and scored a knockdown in the first stanza. Solis has a weak jab that needs to be reconstructed and a good right hand. In round three, the right hands started landing and Terrance was counted out.

Cristian Otero (6-4, 2 KOs) vs. Yeuri Andujar (5-6-1, 3 KOs, 3 KOs by) was another competitive action fight. Andujar came into the ring with four losses and a draw in his last five outings. But those numbers are deceiving in that he’d been overmatched against prospects like Bruce Carrington and Robeisy Ramirez. Otero is a club fighter who gives an honest effort every time out. Andujar dropped Otero in round two and finished him with a brutal right hand in round four.

I’d much rather see evenly-matched club fighters who put everything they have into fights that they can win than a parade of mismatches.

***

The International Boxing Hall of Fame recently announced its inductees for 2024. I was disappointed that Flip Homansky (who was on the ballot for the first time) wasn’t chosen for induction. My sense is that too many of the electors don’t understand the trailblazing contributions that Dr Homansky made in advancing the health and safety of fighters during his years at the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

I’d also like to address what I believe is an injustice regarding two men who have never been on the ballot.

Gerry Cooney won his first 23 fights before losing to Larry Holmes on a night when Holmes was as good as he’d ever been or would be ever again. Plagued by substance abuse problems that he conquered after leaving boxing, Cooney retired after losses to Michael Spinks and George Foreman. The only three men to beat him in a boxing ring were first-ballot Hall of Famers. Hall of Fame matchmaker Bruce Trampler ranks Cooney among the top twenty heavyweights of all time.

Cooney never won a world championship. But neither did Jimmy Bivins, Charley Burley, Billy Graham, Cocoa Kid, Lloyd Marshall, Holman Williams, and others who are enshrined in Canastota. He deserved to be on the ballot ahead of Jorge Arce, Vuyani Bungu, Yuri Arbachakov, Leo Gamez, Miguel Lora, Orzubek Navarov and some of the other nominees.

Cedric Kushner was a significant player on the boxing scene for decades. He was best known for promoting heavyweights like Hasim Rahman, Shannon Briggs, Chris Byrd, Ike Ibeabuchi, Jameel McCline, Derrick Jefferson, Kirk Johnson, Axel Schulz, and David Tua, but also built stars like Shane Mosley in other weight classes.

Dan Goossen, Klaus-Peter Kohl, Tito Lectoure, and Mogens Palle are in the Hall of Fame. Kushner was their equal as a promoter and deserved to be on the ballot.

****

The holiday sentiment of peace on Earth seems sadly out of reach this year. But I’d like to recount a story that Yuri Foreman told me years ago.

Foreman was born in Belarus. When he was eleven, his family moved to Israel.

“At first it was difficult,” Yuri recalled. “I was missing my friends. And sometimes in Israel, there was discrimination between the Russians and the Jews. The Russians were also Jewish, but the Israelis would call us Russians and say we didn’t deserve to be there, so there would be fights in school between the immigrants and the Israelis.”

Foreman learned the rudiments of boxing in an outdoor lot. There was no ring, not even a heavy bag.

“They wouldn’t give us a gym because we were just Russians,” he remembered. “We went to City Hall and begged for a place to hang a bag and put up a ring. All they told us was, ‘Go box with the Arabs.’ So finally I went to the Arab gym. The first time I walked in, I saw the stares. In their eyes, there was a lot of hatred. But I needed to box. And boy, did they all want to box me. But after a while, the wall that was between us melted. We all wanted the same thing. I traveled with them as teammates. It helped that I won almost all the time. And finally, we became friends.”

Foreman won the WBA 154-pound title in 2009 by decision over Daniel Santos. Shortly before that fight, the father of one of the boys Yuri had boxed with in the Arab gym called and told him, ‘We follow your career. We’re all rooting for you. We’ll be very proud when you become a champion. After you win, we want you to come to our village for a celebration and we’ll kill the nicest of the sheep for you.”

David Morrell photo compliments of Ryan Hafey / Premier Boxing Champions

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – The Universal Sport: Two Years Inside Boxing – was published by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Thomas Hauser

Thomas Hauser is the author of 52 books. In 2005, he was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America, which bestowed the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism upon him. He was the first Internet writer ever to receive that award. In 2019, Hauser was chosen for boxing's highest honor: induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Lennox Lewis has observed, “A hundred years from now, if people want to learn about boxing in this era, they’ll read Thomas Hauser.”

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

Published

1 day ago

July 25, 2024

David A. Avila

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

East Los Angeles has long been a haven for some of the best fighters around if you can keep them out of trouble. For every Oscar De La Hoya or Seniesa Estrada there are thousands derailed by crime, drugs or drinking.

Boxing has always been a favorite sport of East L.A. Every family has an uncle or two who boxes.

On Friday, 360 Promotions’ Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) fights Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1) in the main event at Commerce Casino, in Commerce, CA. UFC Fight Pass will stream the fight card.

The City of Commerce used to be part of East L.A. until 1960 when it incorporated. It’s still considered to be part of East Los Angeles, but informally.

Plenty of fighters come out of East L.A. but few make it all the way like De La Hoya and Estrada. Will Trinidad be the one?

The first world champion from East L.A. or “East Los” as some call it, was Solly Garcia Smith back in the late 1800s. Others were Richie Lemos, Art Frias and Joey Olivo. There is also 1984 Olympic gold medalist Paul Gonzalez.

Once again 360 Promotions brings its popular brand of fights to the area. On this fight card includes two female bouts. One features Roxy Verduzco (1-0) the former amateur star fighting Colleen Davis (3-1-1) in a featherweight fight.

All that action takes place on Friday.

Elite Boxing

The next day, also in East L.A., Elite Boxing stages another boxing card at Salesian High School located at 960 S. Soto Street in the Boyle Heights area of East Los Angeles.

Elite Boxing has promoted several successful boxing cards at the Catholic high school grounds. The area is saturated by many of the best eateries in Los Angeles. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out yourself and grab some of that delicious food.

Boxing has long been a favorite sport of anyone who lives in East L.A. It’s a fight town equal to Philadelphia, Brooklyn or Detroit. There’s something different about the area. For more than 100 years some of the best fighters continue to come out of its boxing gyms. Some will be performing on these club shows.

For tickets or information go to www.eliteboxingusa.com

Claressa Shields in Detroit

Speaking of fight towns, pound-for-pound best Claressa Shields who won two Olympic Gold Medals in boxing, moves up another weight division to tackle the WBC heavyweight world champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse on Saturday, July 27, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan.

DAZN will stream the heavy-duty fight card.

Shields (14-0) cleaned out the super welterweight, middleweight and super middleweight divisions and now wants to add the big girls to her conquests. She will be facing Canada’s Lepage-Joanisse (7-1) who holds the WBC belt.

The last time Shields gloved up was more than a year ago when she fought Maricela Cornejo. Don’t blame Shields. She loves to fight. She loves to win. The last time Shields lost a fight was in the amateurs and that was three presidential administrations ago.

Shields doesn’t lose.

I wonder if Las Vegas even takes bets on her fights?

The only fight she may have been an underdog was against Savannah Marshall who was the last opponent to defeat her. And that was in 2012 in China. When they met as pros two years ago, Shields avenged her loss with a blistering attack.

Don’t get Shields mad.

Perhaps her toughest foe as a pro was in her pro debut when she clashed with Franchon Crews-Dezurn in Las Vegas. It was four rounds of fists and fury as the two pounded each other on the undercard of Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev in November 2016.

That was a ferocious debut for both female pugilists.

Assisting Shields on this fight card will be several intriguing male bouts. One guy you should pay special attention is Tito Mercado (15-0, 14 KOs) a super lightweight prospect from Pomona, California.

Many excellent fighters have come out of Pomona including Sugar Shane Mosley, Shane Mosley Jr., Alberto Davila and Richie Sandoval who just passed away this week.

Sandoval was best known for his 15-round war with Philadelphia’s Jeff Chandler for the bantamweight world title in 1984. Read the story by Arne K. Lang on this link: https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/featured-boxing-articles-boxing-news-videos-rankings-and-results/81467-former-world-bantamweight-champion-richie-sandoval-passes-away-at-age-63 .

Fights to Watch

Fri. UFC Fight Pass 7 p.m. Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) vs Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1).

Sat. ESPN+ 12:30 p.m. Joe Joyce (16-2) vs Derek Chisora (34-13).

Sat. DAZN 3 p.m. Claressa Shields (14-0) vs Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse (7-1), Michel Rivera (25-1) vs Hugo Roldan (22-2-1); Tito Mercado (15-0) vs Hector Sarmiento (21-2).

Omar Trinidad photo by Lina Baker

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Arne’s Almanac: Jake Paul and Women’s Boxing, a Curmudgeon’s Take

Published

2 days ago

July 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Jake Paul can fight more than a little. The view from here is that he would make it interesting against any fringe contender in the cruiserweight division. However, Jake’s boxing acumen pales when paired against his skill as a flim-flam artist.

Jake brought a 9-1 record into last weekend’s bout with Mike Perry. As noted by boxing writer Paul Magno, Jake’s previous opponents consisted of “a You Tuber, a retired NBA star, five retired MMA stars, a part-time boxer/reality TV star, and two undersized and inactive fall-guy boxers.”

Mike Perry, a 32-year-old Floridian, was undefeated (6-0, 3 KOs) as a bare-knuckle boxer after forging a 14-8 record in UFC bouts. In pre-fight blurbs, Perry was billed as the baddest bare knuckle boxer of all time, but against Jake Paul he proved to have very unrefined skills as a conventional boxer which Team Paul undoubtedly knew all along. Perry lasted into the eighth round in a one-sided fight that could have been stopped a lot sooner.

Jake Paul is both a boxer and a promoter. As a promoter, he handles Amanda Serrano, one of the greatest female boxers in history. That makes him the person most responsible (because the buck stops with him) for the wretched mismatch in last Saturday’s co-feature, the bout between Serrano and Stevie Morgan.

Morgan, who took up boxing two years ago at age 33, brought a 14-1 record. Nicknamed the Sledgehammer, she had won 13 of her 14 wins by knockout, eight in the opening round. However, although she resides in Florida, all but one of those 13 knockouts happened in Colombia.

“We found that in Colombia there were just more opportunities for women’s boxing than in the United States,” she told a prominent boxing writer whose name we won’t mention.

The truth is that, for some folks, Colombia is the boxing equivalent of a feeder lot for livestock, a place where a boxer can go to fatten their record. The opportunities there were no greater than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1995. It was there that Peter McNeeley prepped for his match with Mike Tyson with a 6-second knockout of professional punching bag Frankie Hines. (Six seconds? So it would be written although no one seems to have been there to witness it.)

Serrano vs Morgan was understood to be a stay-busy fight for Amanda whose rematch with Katie Taylor was postponed until November. Stevie Morgan, to her credit, answered the bell for the second round whereas others in her situation would have remained on the stool and invented an injury to rationalize it. Thirty-eight seconds later it was all over and Ms. Morgan was free to go home and use her sledgehammer to do some light dusting.

The Paul-Perry and Serrano-Morgan fights played out in a sold-out arena in Tampa before an estimated 17,000. Those without a DAZN subscription paid $64.95 for the livestream. Paul’s next promotion, where he will touch gloves with 58-year-old Mike Tyson (unless Iron Mike pulls a Joe Biden and pulls out; a capital idea) with Serrano-Taylor II the semi-main, will almost certainly rake in more money than any other boxing promotion this year.

Asked his opinion of so-called crossover boxing by a reporter for a college newspaper, the venerable boxing promoter Bob Arum said, “It’s not my bag but folks who don’t like it shouldn’t get too worked up over it because no one is stealing from anybody.” True enough, but for some of us, the phenomenon is distressing.

—

The next big women’s fight happens Saturday in Detroit where Claressa Shields seeks a world title in a third weight class against WBC heavyweight belt-holder Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist, undefeated in 14 fights as a pro, Shields is very good, arguably the best female boxer of her generation which makes her, arguably, the best female boxer of all time. But turning away Lepage-Joanisse (7-1, 2 KOs) won’t elevate her stature in our eyes.

Purportedly 17-4 as an amateur, the Canadian won her title in her second crack at it. Back in August of 2017, she challenged Cancun’s Alejandra Jimenez in Cancun and was stopped in the third round. Entering the bout, Lepage-Joanisse was 3-0 as a pro and had never fought a match slated for more than four rounds.

Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

True, on the women’s side, the heavyweight bracket is a very small pod. A sanctioning body has to make concessions to harness a sanctioning fee. Nonetheless, how absurd that a woman who had answered the bell for only 11 rounds would be deemed qualified to compete for a world title. (FYI: Alejandra Jimenez was purportedly born a man. She left the sport with a 12-0-1 record after her win over Franchon Crews Dazurn was changed to a no-contest when she tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol.)

Following her defeat to Jimenez, Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse, now 29 years old, was out of action for six-and-a-half years. When she returned, she was still a heavyweight, but a much slender heavyweight. She carried 231 pounds for Jimenez. In her most recent bout where she captured the vacant WBC title with a split decision over Argentina’s Abril Argentina Vidal, she clocked in at 173 ¼. (On the distaff side, there’s no uniformity among the various sanctioning bodies as to what constitutes a heavyweight.)

Claressa Shields doesn’t need Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse to reinforce her credentials as a future Hall of Famer. She made the cut a long time ago.

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Former World Bantamweight Champion Richie Sandoval Passes Away at Age 63

Published

4 days ago

July 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Richie Sandoval, who won the WBA and lineal bantamweight title in one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s and then, not quite two years later, suffered near-fatal injuries in a title defense, has passed away at the age of 63.

News circulated fast in the Las Vegas boxing community on Monday, July 22, the grapevine actuated by a tweet from Hall of Fame matchmaker Bruce Trampler: “Boxing and the Top Rank family lost one of our own last night in the passing of former WBA bantamweight champion Richie Sandoval. It hurts personally and professionally to know that Richie is gone at age 63. RIP campeon.”

Details are vague but the cause of death was apparently a sudden heart attack that Sandoval experienced while visiting the Southern California home of his son of the same name.

Richie Sandoval put the LA County community of Pomona, California, on the boxing map before Shane Mosley came along and gave the town a more frequently-cited mention in the sports section of the papers. He came from a fighting family. An older brother, Albert “Superfly” Sandoval, became a big draw at LA’s fabled Olympic Auditorium while building a 35-2-1 record that included a failed bid to capture Lupe Pintor’s world bantamweight title.

Richie was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic boxing team that was stranded when U.S. President Jimmy Carter (and many other world leaders) boycotted the event as a protest against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

As a pro, Sandoval’s signature win was a 15^th-round stoppage of Jeff Chandler. They fought on April 7, 1984 in Atlantic City. Chandler was making the tenth defense of his world bantamweight title.

Despite being a heavy underdog, Sandoval dominated the fight, winning almost every round until the referee stepped in and waived it off. Chandler, who was 33-1-2 heading in and had avenged his lone defeat, never fought again.

Sandoval made two successful defenses before risking his title against Gaby Canizales on the undercard of Hagler-Mugabi in the outdoor stadium at Caesars Palace. In round seven, Sandoval, who had a hellish time making the weight, was knocked down three times and suffered a seizure as he collapsed from the third knockdown. Stretchered out of the ring, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors reduced the swelling in his brain and beat the odds to save his life. This would be Richie’s lone defeat. He finished his pro career with a record of 29-1 (17 KOs).

Bob Arum cushioned some of the pain by giving Richie a $25,000 bonus and offering him a lifetime job at Top Rank which Richie accepted. And let the record show that Arum was good to his word.

A more elaborate portrait of Richie Sandoval was published in these pages in 2017. You can check it out HERE. May he rest in peace.

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