Underdog Showtime Won Its War With HBO, But the Victory Now Seems Hollow

Published

11 months ago

December 18, 2023

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Underdog Showtime Won Its War With HBO, But the Victory Now Seems Hollow

Carthage finally has fallen.

Not that many boxing fans are apt to compare the former arch-rivalry of premium-cable outlets HBO and Showtime with the three Punic Wars pitting the Roman Empire against the formidable North African city-state of Carthage from 264 B.C. to 146 B.C., but the analogy fits when certain modifications are taken into consideration.

During the 32 years when HBO and Showtime went head-to-head in much the same manner of the fighters they showcased, the more-established, better-funded HBO was the figurative representative of Rome’s omnipresent might, with Showtime cast as the gritty, determined equivalent of Carthage. But a near-century of intermittent conflict ended as it surely had to, with Roman legions finally laying waste to the most persistent obstacle to the quest for absolute control of an expanding and insatiable empire.

But upsets can and do happen in boxing, and the Rome vs. Carthage script flipped at the end of 2018 when HBO quit on its stool after 45 years in the fight game, its once-well-financed commitment to being the industry leader ebbing incrementally at the behest of an increasingly disinterested corporate ownership.

“HBO is now a mature company, and the guys who care just about the numbers decided that boxing wasn’t popular enough to keep going,” longtime HBO commentator Larry Merchant said as the end of an era came with the sound of a death rattle. “They were putting fractions – small fractions – of the money into it that they used to put into it.”

“It’s sad to see it all go away by its own hand and their own decision-making,” added Lou DiBella, a senior vice president of HBO Sports until his departure in the fall of 2000. “This is like the Yankees going out of business in a way, in terms of a brand … You would have loved to see them go out on top, not with a whimper.”

The demise of HBO Boxing opened the door for a dramatic rise in prestige for Showtime Championship Boxing and its much-respected, star-making adjunct, ShoBox, whose administrators and broadcast talent reveled in their figurative elevation from Carthage to Rome. But, as Spanish philosopher George Santayana once observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Just as HBO had abdicated its lofty place in the boxing stratosphere five years earlier, the curtain came down on Showtime, by turns reminiscent of its scrappy underdog period and its later heyday as the foremost televised purveyor of the sweet science. As was the case with HBO, the cause of its demise likely can be traced to profit-and-loss figures on a spreadsheet, not the love of a sport that always has needed to be embraced for reasons that necessarily supersede priorities established by upper management and accountants with sharp pencils and MBA degrees.

Voicing the same sort of sad farewell that Merchant and DiBella had offered up when HBO took its leave in 2018 is Showtime’s David Dinkins Jr., the Senior Vice President and Executive Producer for the entire 37-year run of its boxing operation.

“We should be recognized for our pursuit of excellence and attention to detail,” Dinkins said in an interview with The Ring. In our prime we were without peer – the best coverage, live and replays, best commentary and the best presentation from the ring walks to post-fight interviews.”

Well, some deposed HBO Boxing alumni might argue that point, but the net effect of Showtime taking the 10-count opens a Pandora’s Box of uncertainty that surely will affect the way the sport is made available to the public going forward, possibly more than anyone can imagine in the here and now.

On Dec. 7, Prime Video and Premier Boxing Champions announced what they described as a “multiyear rights agreement,” with Prime Video included in the Amazon Prime membership package. A series of PBC Championship Boxing events will be streamed, including PBC pay-per-view shows. Given the fact that Prime Video has more than 150 million subscribers in the United States, as reported by Thomas Hauser, the first reaction might be that boxing, unlike Carthage, is too resilient to ever be destroyed. But every move away from established norms to something new requires a period of adjustment, for those assuming the burden of proprietorship as well as fight fans who long have been asked to part with chunks of their diminishing disposable income to feed their pugilistic addiction.

Let history record that Showtime Championship Boxing officially breathed its last at 11:26 p.m. EST when its closing credits finished rolling, not long after WBA super middleweight champion David Morrell Jr.’s second-round stoppage of Sena Agbeko became the answer to a future trivia question as to which bout shoveled the last spade of dirt onto a grave worthy of a polished marble headstone.

The tripleheader of televised fights, all won by southpaws, was a fitting farewell. The 25-year-old Morrell (10-0, 9 KOs) might seem too early in his professional career to have already logged five title defenses, but the transplant from steamy Cuba to the wintry frigidity of his adopted home base of Minneapolis was 130-2 as an amateur and has the look of a possible future superstar. Fighting for the sixth time in the comfy confines of the sold-out Armory (all 5,314 seats filled), Morrell (pictured) dispatched Agbeko (28-3, 22 KOs) with a display of power punching that had him clamoring for a non-alphabet championship matchup that conceivably could take place sometime in the about-to-become new year.

“In 2024, I want to fight Benavidez. One hundred percent,” Morrell said of a pairing for the all-David 168-pound crown, with a shot at undisputed super middleweight champ Canelo Alvarez presumably awaiting the winner. But Benavidez (28-0, 24 KOs) is coming off a sixth-round stoppage of Demetrius Andrade on Nov. 25 and is hopeful his next bout will be with Alvarez, without the necessity of going through Morrell first.

The co-main event, pitting Chris “Primetime” Colbert against Jose “Rayo” Valenzuela in a WBA lightweight eliminator, was a do-over of their closely contested and controversial first meeting on March 25 of this year, when Colbert overcame a first-round knockdown and a couple of other shaky rounds to pull out a unanimous decision by identical 95-94 scorecards from the three judges. Although Colbert said he’d never give “sore loser” Valenzuela a rematch, the opportunity to be a part of the historic Showtime exit card was too much for Colbert to say no to, although he may have come to regret his acquiescence.

The larger and stronger Valenzuela, as in their first bout, dropped Colbert in the first round and thereafter he waited for his opportunity to unveil a previously sheathed weapon, a right hook, whenever Colbert switched from orthodox to southpaw, which he did in the sixth round. With Colbert’s protective left hand down, Valenzuela flung himself forward to land a crushing hook that sent his opponent crashing to the canvas, unconscious, his head draped over the bottom stand of the ring ropes.

“The second time he turned left he saw I was gonna throw a jab so he could catch it up front, but I dipped a little bit and shot the right hook,” Valenzuela said of his put-away bomb.

After Colbert came to and met with Valenzuela in the center of the ring, he said, “We’re 1-1, let’s run this back.” That request didn’t gain any traction with Valenzuela, who said, “I beat him twice. I was patient for a reason. This was a title eliminator and I want to fight for a title. So Tank Davis (the WBA lightweight ruler), let’s get it on, man.”

The opener, pitting a pair of 40-year-old former world champions, was a rematch of a bout that took place 11 years earlier, when Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (38-6-1, 20 KOs) scored a 12-round unanimous decision over Andre Berto (32-6, 24 KOs). The oldies-but-used-to-be goodies may not be all that they once were, but both showed sporadic flashes of their prime selves with Guerrero winning a wide 10-round unanimous decision.

Now that Showtime has joined HBO as boxing entities that are no more, it is worth mentioning that their frequent skirmishes behind the scenes were often as noteworthy as, say, the confrontations that paired aging promotional lions Don King and Bob Arum. One such incident took place in 2005, when I was president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.

The BWAA almost always has staged its annual awards dinner in New York City, but I concluded that Las Vegas was long overdue to be the host city for such an affair, but only if it could come in conjunction with a corresponding fight important enough to attract a sizable media gathering. Officials at both HBO and Showtime were made aware of the BWAA’s intentions and were given a time window in which a suitable bout could be arranged as an accompaniment for the awards dinner.

Jay Larkin, then the senior vice president and executive producer of Showtime Sports, was so enthused about his company’s possible participation that he vowed to up his normal budget for that particular show by a half-million dollars, with the Mandalay Bay to serve as the host venue for what proved to be the first matchup of Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo on May 7, 2005. We shook hands and that was that. Or at least it should have been.

A few days later, someone purporting to be representing HBO – I should stress it was not someone directly affiliated with HBO – contacted me and said that HBO honchos had reconsidered and wanted in. The fight tie-in would have been at the MGM Grand on May 14, 2005, and featured Felix Trinidad against Winky Wright. That was nice, I said, but I already had agreed to the date with Showtime for the previous week.

“But did you sign a contract?” the guy asked. “If you didn’t sign a contract, you can switch to the following week. And Trinidad is a bigger name than the two guys on the Showtime card.”

“Maybe so, but I gave my word,” I replied. The way I was raised, if you give your word, that should count for something, and I wasn’t about to renege on a verbal agreement that, to my way of thinking, was as good as a signed, sealed and delivered piece of paper.

Not that anyone could have predicted how everything would shake out, but Corrales-Castillo I turned out to be an epic, Fight of the Year lollapalooza. The BWAA dinner at the Mandalay Bay the night before was also a smash hit, with a ring set up in the banquet hall that made for a photo op that included Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar De La Hoya, Bernard Hopkins, James Toney, Vitali Klitschko, Chris Byrd, Shane Mosley, Winky Wright, Zab Judah, Hasim Rahman and master of ceremonies Jimmy Lennon Jr., among others. The following week, Trinidad turned in possibly the worst performance of his career in losing a one-sided, unanimous decision to Wright.

But the thing is, had HBO made the earliest proposal and I shook hands on it, that also would have been as good as a signed contract. Jay Larkin – who was fired by Showtime later in November 2005 because of job cutbacks, and died of brain cancer at the too-young age of 59 on Aug. 9, 2010 – kept his word to me, and I wish he had been included when Showtime’s closing credits rolled late Saturday night.

Carthage has fallen, probably forever, and I can only say that I will miss the in-fighting that took place when HBO and Showtime competed so fiercely that they made boxing, and their own operations, better. It was a grand time, often chaotic, but never lacking in entertainment. The sun still comes up every morning, but somehow the world seems just a bit different. Time will tell just how different, and whether those of us who love the sport of crooked noses and indomitable hearts will be satisfied with whatever comes next.

—
Bernard Fernandez, named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category with the Class of 2020, was the recipient of numerous awards for writing excellence during his 28-year career as a sports writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. “Championship Rounds, Round 4,” the fourth installment of Fernandez’s four-volume anthology, is now out and available via Amazon and other book-selling outlets.

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Boxing Odds and Ends: Oscar Collazo, Reimagining ‘The Ring’ Magazine and More

Published

2 days ago

November 19, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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With little boxing activity over the next two weekends, there’s no reason to hold off anointing Oscar Collazo the Fighter of the Month for November. In his eleventh pro fight, Collazo turned heads with a masterful performance against previously undefeated Thammanoon Niyamtrong, grabbing a second piece of the title in boxing’s smallest weight class while ending the reign of the sport’s longest-reigning world title-holder. The match was on the undercard of the Nov. 16 “Latino Night” show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia headlined by the cruiserweight tiff between Mexico’s Zurdo Ramirez and England’s Chris Billam-Smith.

Collazo was a solid favorite, but no one expected the fight would be as one-sided. Collazo put on a clinic, as the saying goes. He took the starch out of Niyamtrong with wicked body punches before ending matters in the seventh. A left uppercut sent the Thai to the canvas for the third time and the referee immediately stepped in and stopped it.

Collazo, wrote Tris Dixon, “dissected and destroyed a very good fighter.” Indeed. A former Muay Thai champion, Niyamtrong (aka Knockout CP Freshmart) brought a 25-0 record and was making the thirteenth defense of his WBA strap.

A Puerto Rican born in Newark, Jersey, Oscar Collazo turned pro after winning a gold medal in the 2019 Pan American games in Lima, Peru. He was reportedly named after Oscar De La Hoya (we will take that info with a grain of salt), names Hall of Famer Ivan Calderon as a mentor and is co-promoted by Hall of Famer Miguel Cotto.

Collazo, 27, won the WBO version of the 105-pound title in his seventh pro fight with a seven-round beatdown of Melvin Jerusalem. He won a world title faster than any Puerto Rican boxer before him.

His goal now, he says, is to become a unified champion. He would be the first from the island in the modern era. Although Puerto Rico has a distinguished boxing history – twelve Boricua boxers are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame — there hasn’t been a fully unified champion from Puerto Rico since the WBO came along in 1988.

The other belt-holders at 105 are the aforementioned Jerusalem (WBC) and his Filipino countryman Melvin Taduran (IBF). Both won their belts in Japan with upsets of the Shigeoka brothers, respectively Yudai (Jerusalem) and Ginjiro (Taduran). Collazo would be a massive favorite over either.

A far more attractive fight would pit Collazo against two-time Olympic gold medalist Hasanboy Dusmatov. In theory, this would be an easy fight to make as the undefeated Uzbek trains in Indio, California, a frequent stomping ground of Collazo’s co-promoter Oscar De La Hoya who had a piece of the action when Dusmatov made his pro debut in Mexico. However, it’s doubtful that Dusmatov’s influential advisor Vadim Kornilov would let him take such a treacherous fight until the match-up had been properly “marinated,” by which time they both may be competing in a higher weight class. The Puerto Rican, who began his pro career at 110, is big for the 105-pound division notes the noted boxing historian Matt McGrain who is partial to the little guys.

—

Outside the ropes, the big news in boxing in November was the news that The Ring magazine had been sold to Turki Alalshikh. The self-acclaimed Bible of Boxing, which celebrated its 100^th anniversary in 2022, was previously owned by a subsidiary of Oscar De La Hoya’s company, Golden Boy Enterprises, which acquired the venerable publication in 2007. Alalshikh purportedly paid $10 million dollars.

Alalshikh, the head of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, confirmed the sale on social media on Monday, Nov. 11.

“Earlier this week, I finalized a deal to acquire 100% of The Ring Magazine, and I want to make a few things clear,” he said. “The print version of the magazine will return immediately after a two year hiatus and it will be available in the US and UK markets. The magazine will be fully independent, with brilliant writers and focusing on every aspect in the sport of boxing. We will continue to raise the prestige of The Ring Titles, and plans are already underway to have a yearly extravagant awards ceremony to celebrate the very best in the boxing industry.”

Alalshikh, blessed with an apparently unlimited budget, is already the most powerful man in the sport and more than a few concerns have been raised about his latest venture, especially in light of an incident involving prominent British scribe Oliver Brown.

Brown, the chief sports writer for the Telegraph who had previously covered three of Tyson Fury’s fights in Saudi Arabia, had his credential pulled for the Joshua-Dubois show at Wembley Stadium after calling the event “a grisly conduit for glorifying the Saudi regime.”

“I frankly do not trust Alalshikh to keep his personal aims from influencing the publication’s content,” says boxing writer Patrick Stumberg. One thing is certain: So long as the publication remains in the hands of the Saudis, the word “sportswashing” will never appear in the pages of The Ring magazine.

The Ring is the second major online boxing magazine to change hands this year. In February, Boxing Scene, one of the most heavily-trafficked sites in the ecosystem, was sold to Canadian-American entrepreneur Garry Jonas, best known as the founder of ProBox, a promotional entity headquartered in Plant City, Florida.

—

Mike Tyson’s showing against Jake Paul was mindful of something that Jimmy Cannon once wrote: “…the flesh was corrupted by time. The mind operated as if it was in another man’s head…the talent has been contaminated by age.”

Cannon was describing Joe Louis in Louis’s farewell fight against Rocky Marciano.

True, Jake Paul is no Rocky Marciano. To include their names in the same sentence borders on sacrilege. But the fabled Brown Bomber was 37 years old when he was rucked into retirement by Marciano on that October night at Madison Square Garden. At age 58, Mike Tyson was old enough to be Joe Louis’s father and yet human lemmings by the thousands couldn’t resist betting on him.

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The Hauser Report: Some Thoughts on Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul

Published

4 days ago

November 17, 2024

Thomas Hauser

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Jake Paul boxed his way to a unanimous decision over Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Friday night. The bout, streamed live on Netflix, was one of the most-watched fights of all time and, in terms of the level of competition, boxing’s least-consequential mega-fight ever.

We’re living in a golden age for spectator sports. Sports generate massive amounts of money from engaged fan bases and are more popular now than ever before. Today’s athletes are more physically gifted, better conditioned, and more skilled than their predecessors. Their prowess is appreciated and understood by tens of millions of fans.

Not so for boxing. For the sweet science, this is an era of “fools’ gold.” Yes, fighters like Oleksandr Usyk, Canelo Alvarez, Terence Crawford, and Naoya Inoue bring honor to the sport. But boxing’s fan base has dwindled to the point where most people have no idea who the heavyweight champion of the world is. The sport’s dominant promoter has a business model that runs hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the red. And most fights of note are contested behind a paywall that shrinks the fan base even more. Few sports fans understand what good boxing is.

Mike Tyson is 58 years old. Once upon a time, he was the most destructive boxer in the world and “the baddest man on the planet.” Prior to last Friday night, he hadn’t fought in nineteen years and hadn’t won a fight since 2003.

Jake Paul is a 27-year-old social media personality who wasn’t born when Tyson lost his aura of invincibility at the hands of Buster Douglas. Paul began boxing professionally three years ago and, before fighting Tyson, had compiled a 10-1 (7 KOs) record against carefully chosen opponents.

Netflix has roughly 283 million subscribers globally, 84 million of them in North America. Recently, it made the decision to move into live sports. On December 25, it will stream the National Football League’s two Christmas games on an exclusive basis.

Netflix took note of the fact that Tyson’s 2020 exhibition against Roy Jones drew 1.6 million pay-per-view buys and concluded that Tyson-Paul had the potential to be the most-viewed fight of all time. It purchased rights to the fight as an attention grabber and subscription seller for (a best-estimate) $40 million.

Tyson-Paul was originally scheduled for July 20. A compliant Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations sanctioned the bout as an official fight, not an exhibition. In deference to Tyson’s age, the fighters agreed that the match would be contested over eight two-minute rounds (women’s rules) with 14-ounce gloves (heavyweight gloves normally weigh ten ounces).

But on May 26, Tyson became nauseous and dizzy while on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles and needed medical assistance for what was later described as a bleeding ulcer. The fight was rescheduled for November 15. Later, Tyson described the incident on the plane as follows: “I was in the bathroom throwing up blood. I had, like, eight blood transfusions. The doctor said I lost half my blood. I almost died. I lost 25 pounds in eleven days. Couldn’t eat. Only liquids. Every time I went to the bathroom, it smelled like tar. Didn’t even smell like shit anymore. It was disgusting.”

Does that sound like a 58-year-old man who should be fighting?

As Eliot Worsell noted, Tyson-Paul contained all the elements of a successful reality show. “There are for a start,” he wrote, “celebrities involved, two of them. One is ‘old famous’ and the other ‘new famous’ and both bring large audiences with them. They need only tap something on their phone to guarantee the entire world pays attention. And that, in this day and age, is all you really need to green light a project like this.”

But Worsell added a word of caution, observing, “This has been the story of Jake Paul’s pro boxing career to date; one of smoke and mirrors, one of sycophants telling him only what he wants to hear. He has been fed a lie just as Mike Tyson is now being fed a lie, and on November 15 they will both play dress-up and be watched by millions. They will wear gloves like boxers and they will move like boxers – one hampered in this quest by old age and the other by sheer incompetence – and they will together make ungodly sums of money.”

There was early talk that 90,000 fans would jam AT&T Stadium on fight night. Initially, ticket prices ranged from $381 to $7,956. And those prices were dwarfed by four tiers of VIP packages topped by a two-million-dollar “MVP Owner’s Experience” that included special ringside seating at the fight for six people, luxury hotel accommodations, weigh-in and locker room photo ops, boxing gloves signed by Tyson and Paul, and other amenities.

But by Monday of fight week, ticket prices had dropped to as little as $36. Ringside seats were available for $900. And the press release announcing the eventual MVP Owner’s Experience sale backtracked a bit, saying the package was “valued at $2 million” – not that the actual sale price was $2 million. It also appeared that the purchase price included advertising for the law firm that purchased the package since the release proclaimed, “Just as every fighter in the ring stands to represent resilience, grit, and the pursuit of victory, TorkLaw stands in the corner of the people, fighting for justice and empowering those who need it most.”

That said, the fight drew 72,300 fans (inclusive of giveaway tickets) to AT&T Stadium. And the live gate surpassed $18 million making it the largest onsite gate ever in the United States for a fight card outside of Las Vegas. More than 60 million households watched the event live around the world.

The undercard featured a spirited fight between Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos that ended in a draw. Then came the second dramatic showdown between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano.

Taylor-Serrano II was for all four major sanctioning body 140-pound belts. Two years ago, Katie and Amanda did battle at Madison Square Garden on a historic night that saw Taylor emerge with a controversial split-decision win. Katie is now 38 years old and her age is showing. Amanda is 36. Taylor was an early 6-to-5 betting favorite in the rematch but the odds flipped late in Serrano’s favor.

Amanda began Taylor-Serrano II in dominating fashion and wobbled Katie just before the bell ending round one. That set the pattern for the early rounds. Serrano looked like she could hurt Taylor, and Taylor didn’t look like she could hurt Serrano.

Then in round four, Serrano got hurt. A headbutt opened a gruesome gash on her right eyelid. As the bout progressed, the cut became more dangerous. From an armchair perspective, it looked as though the fight should have been stopped and the result determined by the judges’ abbreviated scorecards. But the ring doctor who examined Serrano allowed it to continue even though the flow of blood seemed to handicap Amanda more and more with each passing round.

In round eight, referee Jon Schorle took a point away from Taylor after the fourth clash of heads that he thought Katie had initiated. By then, Serrano’s face resembled a gory Halloween mask and the bout had turned into a non-stop firefight. Each woman pushed herself as far as it seemed possible to go.

In the eyes of most observers, Serrano clearly won the fight. This writer scored the bout 96-93 in Amanda’s favor. Then the judges had their say. Each one favored Taylor by a 95-94 margin.

“My God!” blow-by-blow commentator Mauro Ranallo exclaimed after the verdict was announced. “How does one rob Amanda Serrano after a performance like that?”

In keeping with the hyperbole of the promotion, one might say that it was the most-watched ring robbery (although not the worst) in boxing history.

CompuBox is an inexact tabulation. But there’s a point at which the numbers can’t be ignored. According to CompuBox, Serrano outlanded Taylor in nine of ten rounds with an overall 324-to-217 advantage in punches landed.

From a boxing standpoint, Taylor-Serrano II made the evening special. Casual fans who don’t know much about the sweet science saw a very good fight. But they also saw how bad judging undermines boxing.

Meanwhile, as good as Taylor-Serrano II was, that’s not what Netflix was selling to the public. Jake Paul’s most recent events had engendered disappointing viewer numbers. This one was a cultural touchstone because of Tyson.

Paul has worked hard to become a boxer. In terms of skills, he’s now a club fighter (which is more than 99.9 percent of the population could realistically dream of being). So, what happens when a club fighter fights a 58-year-old man who used to be great?

Jack Johnson fought until the age of 53, losing four of his last six bouts. And the two he won were against opponents named Rough House Wilson (who was disqualified in what would be his only recorded professional fight) and Brad Simmons (who was barred from fighting again in Kansas because he was believed to have thrown the fight against Johnson).

Larry Holmes fought until age 52, knocking out 49-year-old Mike Weaver at age 51 and winning a unanimous decision over Eric Esch (aka Butterbean) in his final bout.

Paul was a 2-to-1 betting favorite. Serious PED testing for the fight was a murky issue but seems to have been minimal. Taylor and Serrano underwent VADA testing in advance of their bout. Tyson and Paul didn’t.

Tyson weighed in for the contest at 228.4 pounds; Paul at 227.2 (well over his previous high of 200). Following the weigh-in, Mike and Jake came face to face for the ritual staredown and Mike slapped Jake. But the incident was self-contained with no ripple effect and had the feel of a WWE confrontation.

That raised a question that was fogging the promotion: “Would Tyson vs. Paul be a ‘real’ fight or a pre-arranged sparring session (which was what Tyson vs. Roy Jones appeared to be)?”

That question was of particular note because sports betting is legal in 38 states and 31 of them were allowing wagers on the fight.

Nakisa Bidarian (co-founder of Paul’s promotional company) sought to lay that issue to rest, telling ESPN, “There’s no reason for us to create a federal fraud, a federal crime. These are pro fights that consumers are making legal bets on. We have never and we’ll never do anything that’s other than above board and one hundred percent a pro fight unless we come out clearly and say, ‘Hey, this is an exhibition fight that is a show.'”

Tyson looked old and worried during his ring walk and wore a sleeve on his right knee. The crowd was overwhelmingly in his favor. But it’s an often-repeated truism that the crowd can’t fight. And neither could Mike.

Once upon a time, Tyson scored nine first-minute knockouts in professional fights. Not first-round. First-minute.

Against Paul, “Iron Mike” came out for round one as hard as he could (which wasn’t very hard) while Jake kept a safe distance between them. Then Tyson tired and took all the air out of the fight. By round three, he was in survival mode with his head tucked safely behind his 14-ounce gloves. And Jake didn’t have the skills to hurt him.

The CompuBox numbers favored Paul by a 78-to-18 margin in punches landed. In other words, Tyson landed an average of two punches per round. The judges’ scores were 80-72, 79-73, 79-73 in Jake’s favor. It was a “real” fight but a bad one.

“I love Mike Tyson,” Terence Crawford posted on X afterward. “But they giving him too much credit. He looked like trash.”

Prior to the bout, Tris Dixon wrote, “Tyson-Paul is a weird event, and I can’t think of anything even remotely like it in terms of the level of fighters, celebrity, and their ages. The event is unique, and morally and ethically it is questionable. It is a cynical cash grab. I can’t see it being particularly entertaining as a high-level sporting event. But I’m sure once it starts you won’t be able to take your eyes off it.”

All true. But let’s remember that there was a time when Mike Tyson was universally recognized as the best fighter in the world. Not many people in history have been able to say that.

—

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

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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Golden Boy in Riyadh Results: Zurdo Ramirez Unifies Cruiserweight Titles

Published

5 days ago

November 16, 2024

David A. Avila

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Mexico’s Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez endured the grinding style of England’s Chris Billam-Smith to become the unified WBO and WBA cruiserweight champion by unanimous decision after a bruising battle in Saudi Arabia on Saturday.

“I’m a true champion,” said Ramirez.

Ramirez (47-1, 30 KOs) used angles and experience to out-maneuver the very strong Billam-Smith (20-2, 13 KOs) in Golden Boy Promotion’s first joint adventure with “Riyadh Season” in Riyadh, Saud Arabia.

Footwork by Ramirez seemed to surprise Billiam-Smith whose relentless approach could not corral the Mexican fighter who was fighting only for the second time at cruiserweight.

The former super middleweight champion used his experience and ability to create punching angles to optimum success against Billam-Smith. The movement confused the British fighter who never could find a solution.

“He has consistent shots,” said Billam-Smith. “I had trouble tracking him.”

But Billam-Smith used his relentless attacking style for all 12 rounds despite suffering a cut near his eye in the sixth round. He never quit and pounded away at Ramirez who simply out-punched the incredibly strong British cruiserweight.

No knockdowns were scored. Billam-Smith did have success in the 10^th round but couldn’t overcome the overall success Ramirez had tallied with body shots and straight lefts throughout the contest.

“It meant a lot for me to try and stop him,” said Ramirez. “But he’s pretty tough.”

After 12 rounds of bruising action all three judges saw Ramirez the winner 116-112 twice and 116-113.

Barboza’s Quest

After 11 years Arnold Barboza (31-0, 11 KOs) finally got his wish and met former super lightweight champion Jose Ramirez (29-2, 18 KOs) in the boxing ring and handed him only his second defeat.

“It was a long time coming,” Barboza said.

Barboza started slowly against the pressure style of Ramirez but soon gathered enough information to determine his own attack. Accuracy with jabs and body shots opened things up for the Southern California fighter from El Monte.

Ramirez seemed to lose that fire in his legs and usually attacking style. Though he occasionally showed the old fire it was only in spurts. Barboza took advantage of the lulls and pierced the former champion’s guards with accurate jabs and quick body shots.

He was sharp.

After 10 rounds all three judges favored Barboza 96-94 twice and 97-93.

“This was my championship fight,” said the undefeated Barboza. “I respect everything about him (Ramirez) and his team.” Ramirez’s only previous loss came in a bout with Josh Taylor for the undisputed world title at 140 pounds.

Lightweight clash

William Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) survived a knockdown to out-punch former champion Tevin Farmer (33-7-1, 8 KOs) and walk away with a split decision victory in their lightweight confrontation.

“I knew it was going to be a tough fight,” said Zepeda. “He surprised me a little bit.”

Zepeda opened up with his usual flood of punches from every angle and soon found himself looking up from the floor after Farmer floored him with a perfect counter-left in the third round.

It took the Mexican fighter a few rounds to find a way to avoid Farmer’s counter lefts and then the deluge of blows resumed. Though Farmer continued to battle he couldn’t match the number of blows coming from Zepeda.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Farmer 95-94 but the two other judges saw Zepeda by 95-94 scores.

“I just brought it to him,” said Farmer who knew it was a close fight.

Puerto Rico’s New Unified Champ

In a battle between minimumweight world titlists Puerto Rico’s Oscar Collazo (11-0, 8 KOs) knocked out Thailand’s KO CP Freshmart (25-1, 9 KOs) to become the WBO and WBA champion.

Freshmart, also known as Thammanoon Niyomtrong, was the longest reigning champion in the 105-division weight class for a total of eight years. That was quickly ended as Collazo’s floored the strong Thai fighter three times during their clash of champions.

Body shots proved beneficial to Collazo as both exchanged blows to the abdomen but the Puerto Rican added flashy combinations to control the fight for six rounds.

“I saw him breathing hard,” said Collazo.

Possibly understanding he was falling behind, Freshmart began to advance more aggressively and forced exchanges with the fast Boricua. Bad idea.

During a furious exchange in the sixth Collazo connected with a counter right hook on the chin and down went Freshmart. He recovered and finished the round.

Collazo opened the seventh searching for an opening and immediately connected with another right hook during an exchange of blows with the Thai fighter. Down went Freshmart again but he got up to fight again. Collazo moved in cautiously again and this time fired a left uppercut that finished Freshmart at 1:29 if the seventh round.

“We got the stoppage,” said Collazo the unified WBO and WBA minimumweight champion.

Puerto Rico has another unified world champion in Collazo.

“I want all the belts,” Collazo said.

Duarte edges Akhmedov

Mexico’s Oscar Duarte (28-2-1, 22 KOs) scrapped past Botirzhon Akhmedov (10-4, 9 KOs) in a rugged super lightweight battle to win by unanimous decision. But it was a close one.

“He’s a great fighter, a warrior,” said Duarte of Akhmedov.

Akhmedov started faster using angles and bursts of punches as Duarte looked to counter. In the second half of the 10-round fight the extra energy expended by the fighter from Uzbekistan seemed to tire him. Mexico’s Duarte took advantage and looked stronger in the second half of the match.

All three judges saw Duarte the winner 98-92, 97-93, 96-94.

Welterweights

Saudi Arabia’s Ziyad Almaayouf (6-0-1) and Mexico’s Juan Garcia (5-6-1) fought to a majority draw after six rounds of action.

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy

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