The Hauser Report: Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission

Published

9 months ago

June 23, 2024

The-Hauser-Report-Ryan-Garcia-and-the-New-York-State-Athletic-Commission

On June 20, the New York State Athletic Commission announced that it had reached a settlement with Ryan Garcia.

Garcia defeated Devin Haney by majority decision at Barclays Center on April 20. But his triumph was soon tarnished. On May 1, it was revealed that urine samples taken from Ryan by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) on April 19 and April 20 had tested positive for ostarine – a banned performance-enhancing drug that helps users build muscle mass, lose fat, and increase stamina. The two “B” samples taken from Garcia were subsequently tested at his request and also came back positive.

The June 20 settlement between the NYSAC and Garcia provided for the following:

(1) Garcia’s victory over Haney was changed to “no contest” on each fighter’s official record.

(2) Garcia was fined $10,000 (payable to the NYSAC).

(3) Garcia’s official purse, which was less than what he was actually paid for the fight, was forfeited and returned to Golden Boy (his promoter).

And most significantly;

(4) Garcia’s professional boxing license was suspended until at least April 20, 2025, at which time he will be able to resume his ring career provided that he provides satisfactory evidence to the NYSAC (including the result of at least one PED test) that he is medically fit to fight.

As part of the settlement, Garcia waived his right to a hearing and any appeal of the Consent Order which embodied the terms of the agreement.

The announcement marked an end to an unfortunate series of events that occurred primarily on the watch of former NYSAC executive director Kim Sumbler who, citing family and health reasons, had announced her resignation on May 7. Sumbler lived in Canada and was out of the commission office far more than she was in it during her seven-year tenure as executive director.

Let’s put the issues in perspective.

THE NEW YORK STATE ATHLETIC COMMISSION SHOULDN’T HAVE ALLOWED RYAN GARCIA TO FIGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE

In the months leading up to Haney-Garcia, Garcia (who has acknowledged having mental health issues in the past) posted a series of conspiracy-theory rants on social media that focused on satanic ritual sex, aliens, time travel, and demons. He predicted that an earthquake would destroy Los Angeles on June 6 and recounted being tied down and forced to watch middle-aged fat men raping young boys in Bohemian Grove. He referenced his own crucifixion, spoke in tongues, and told his followers that PRIME (a sports drink backed by KSI and Logan Paul) contains cyanide and that anyone who drinks PRIME is “working for Satan.” His conduct at press conferences to promote Haney-Garcia was also bizarre.

Garcia’s behavior was so troubling that attorney Pat English (who would represent Haney after Garcia’s positive test result was announced but wasn’t working with Devin before that) decided to telephone Kim Sumbler to suggest that the NYSAC undertake a thorough psychiatric evaluation to determine if Ryan was fit to fight. English tracked Sumbler down at a motorcycle rally in Florida and voiced his concern. Sumbler, in his words, “was non-committal on the subject.”

Thereafter, Garcia was asked to participate in a short Zoom session with two NYSAC representatives (neither of whom was a mental health care professional) to discuss his situation and sign a HIPAA waiver that allowed a small number of medical documents to be released to the commission. Then, in an act of absurdity, the commission required that Haney submit to a similar “psychiatric evaluation” to “even out the process.”

One might note here that when the Nevada State Athletic Commission conducted a hearing to determine whether Mike Tyson should be licensed to fight Lennox Lewis in Las Vegas after he bit Lennox on the thigh at a promotional press conference, the Nevada commission didn’t require Lennox to undergo a similar evaluation. However, it did deny Tyson a license to fight, after which Lewis-Tyson moved to Tennessee.

Having been licensed to fight Haney in New York, Garcia acted throughout fight week in a crude profane manner that brought disrepute on boxing (if such a thing is possible). He missed the specified contract weight for the bout by three pounds and, as noted above, was later found to have an illegal performance enhancing drug in his system. In recent weeks, he has been arrested in California and transferred by the authorities to a psychiatric facility for observation. He was later allowed to return home.

Just because a fighter is physically fit to fight – and wins a fight – doesn’t mean that it isn’t psychologically damaging for him to fight. I don’t think the NYSAC should have allowed Garcia to fight on April 20. I’m not a mental health care professional. But the two people who spoke briefly with Ryan on behalf of the commission prior to his being licensed, aren’t mental health care professionals either.

RYAN GARCIA AND HIS LAWYERS ACTED ABYSMALLY IN RESPONDING TO THE PED TEST RESULTS

Garcia’s statements on social media and elsewhere regarding his PED test results speak for themselves:

* “It’s straight bullshit. It’s a con job . . . I’m going to find out who paid who to create this lie . . . These guys are probably pedos.”

* “Do not believe the hype. They’re trying to set me up. F*** them all. This is some bull-****ing-shit. These mother******* are known cheaters. They know how to cheat and they know to taint shit because they just tainted my greatest victory. One-hundred percent, it’s the devil, bro. I would never, ever take steroids in my life. I don’t cheat in video games.”

* “It’s a fake. Fake. Completely fake. It’s fabricated. It’s the most fake shit I’ve ever seen in my life. They’re faking it. I’m clean all the way through. F*** them. They can suck a big one.”

Much of Garcia’s rage has been aimed at Victor Conte, the former BALCO mastermind who has since become a forceful advocate for clean sport. After claiming (inaccurately) that Conte was affiliated with VADA and had manipulated his urine sample analysis, Ryan proclaimed on social media, “I’M SUING VADA and victor conte. I’m taking this to court !!!!!! Be prepared. ITS WAR!”

Garcia’s allegations were so off base that Memo Heredia (Conte’s archrival) took to social media and posted, “As much as Conte & I have differences, I like to say he has no access to urine samples. He doesn’t perform any sample analysis or control laboratories for any bias matter. Ryan just trying to mislead and create doubt.”

Meanwhile, as the drama unfolded, Garcia’s attorneys were throwing so many red herrings into the mix that it recalled the words of Abraham Lincoln who counseled, “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. And if the fact and the law are both against you, pound the table.”

After both of the “B” samples collected from Garcia by VADA also tested positive for ostarine, Ryan’s legal team said that he had submitted hair follicles to a Paris clinic and that these samples had been found to be negative. In part, their statement read, “Soon after being notified of his positive test, Ryan voluntarily had his hair collected and shipped to Dr. Pascal Kintz, the foremost expert in toxicology and hair sample analysis. The results of Ryan’s hair sample came back negative, meaning Ryan has never intentionally taken Ostarine in the last six months.”

But that didn’t put the issue to rest since the aforementioned Dr. Kintz had authored a study in 2017 that concluded, “Hair testing should not be considered as an alternative to urinalysis but only as a complement in [a] positive case, and it must be clear that, in case of positive urine results, the negative hair result cannot overrule the positive urine result.”

Shifting gears, Garcia’s legal team then cited what it called the “ultra-low levels” of ostarine in the urine samples taken from Ryan on April 19 and 20 – “in the billionth of a gram range [that] point to Ryan being a victim of supplement contamination and never receiving any performance-enhancing benefit from the microscopic amounts in his system.”

However this “billionth of a gram range” was sixty times the amount of ostarine allowed to be in Ryan’s system under the rules of the New York State Athletic Commission.

Hence, the Garcia legal team advanced yet another argument: “We are certain that one of the natural supplements Ryan was using in the lead-up to the fight will prove to be contaminated. We are in the process of testing the supplements to determine the exact source.”

Lo and behold! On May 30, Garcia’s legal team announced that two supplements (NutraBio SuperCard and Body Health) that Ryan had ingested prior to fighting Haney had been tested by the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory (SMARTL) and had tested positive for ostarine.

“This confirms what we have consistently maintained,” Paul Greene (one of Garcia’s attorneys) said. Ryan was a victim of supplement contamination and has never intentionally used any banned or performance-enhancing substances.”

But – and this is an elephant-sized “but” – both supplements had been sent to SMARTL by Team Garcia in unsealed containers. That violated the most basic testing protocols and left open the possibility of tampering.

“This is nonsense,” Victor Conte declared. “Look at the chain of custody. No reputable commission would accept open containers. Garcia’s people have to get the lot numbers for the supplements he supposedly took and send several containers, unopened and untampered with, to the commission for testing. And by the way; isn’t it odd that both – I repeat, both – supplements tested positive?”

Paulie Malignaggi lacks Conte’s scientific pedigree but came to the same conclusion, noting, “A substance that’s not that common, very rare, winds up in two different batches of two different companies and both of those batches out of all the places they could have went to in the world, both wind up in Ryan Garcia’s house. This is what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about Mega-Millions lottery numbers. If it turns out that this excuse is as false as it sounds ridiculous, does your lying prove intent because obviously you’re trying to cover something up?”

The supplement companies weren’t happy about the allegation of contamination either, since it had the potential to impact negatively on sales of their products.

Thus, on June 14, Nutrabio founder and CEO Mark Glazier issued a statement that read, “Nutrabio categorically rejects the reckless claims made by professional boxer Ryan Garcia and his team that the Nutrabio supercarb product caused Mr. Garcia’s positive test for ostarine. Nutrabio has never manufactured a supplement with ostarine and has never brought ostarine into our manufacturing facility for use in any product, ever. A retain of the Supercarb in question has been tested for ostarine by Eurofins and BSCG, both of which are leading independent third party testing providers. The testing confirmed there was no ostarine detected in the product. Further, the miniscule amount of ostarine allegedly in the open container of Supercarb [provided by the Garcia camp to its own testers] does not explain the amount of ostarine identified in Ryan Garcia’s urine which, at 6 ng/ml, is 60 times the testing limit. We take any claims against our company extremely seriously and stand by our process for ensuring the quality, safety, and security of our products.”

In sum, as Victor Conte noted, “Test results from unsealed containers provided by the athlete himself can’t possibly be authenticated. And Ryan Garcia’s lawyers know that. This is an attempt to influence the New York commission with wave after wave of publicity that would be regarded as ludicrous if it wasn’t repeated so often by con men and idiots.”

III

THE PROCESS BY WHICH THE NEW YORK STATE ATHLETIC COMMISSION RESOLVED THE RYAN GARCIA MATTER EXPOSED SERIOUS FAULT LINES AT THE COMMISSION

The Ryan Garcia debacle happened on Kim Sumbler’s watch. Following her departure from the commission, former director of boxing Matt Delaglio was named acting executive director. Delaglio is respected throughout the boxing community. He’s a hard worker who understands the sport and business of boxing and performed much of the nuts and bolts work for the commission that should have been handled by Sumbler during her tenure.

Delaglio is a capable public servant. But the NYSAC needs an overhaul at the commissioner level.

New York law provides that five commissioners should oversee the NYSAC. One of these positions has been vacant for years. The other four are filled by people who, for the most part, have little or no understanding of the intricacies inherent in combat sports from a competitive or business point of view.

None of the four NYSAC commissioners even attended Haney vs. Garcia.

The settlement negotiations that led to the Consent Order agreed to between the NYSAC and Ryan Garcia were conducted over a two-week period. Three of the four commissioners were aware that negotiations were going on but did not participate in them or vote on the resolution. The fourth commissioner was completely out of the loop.

The Garcia matter also exposed holes in NYSAC drug testing protocols since the commission’s own fight-night test on Garcia’s urine came back clean. How could that be? Because, to save money, the commission sent Garcia’s urine sample to Quest Laboratories rather than to a WADA-accredited lab. And Quest doesn’t test for ostarine. Later, the commission arranged for a WADA-accredited lab to test its Garcia B-sample (which came back positive).

The settlement between the NYSAC and Garcia was orchestrated almost completely on the commission’s side by David Mossberg, who has been a supervising attorney with the New York State Department of State since 2006.

Pat English (who Haney retained to look after his interests once Garcia tested positive for ostarine) says that the NYSAC refused to send him copies of correspondence and other documents exchanged between Garcia’s legal team and the commission, even though he was entitled to see them given Devin’s standing in the matter.

English also recounted a 75-minute conversation with Mossberg on June 18 and complained, “Mossberg didn’t know the facts. There were a number of legal points that I don’t think he understood. He kept saying things that were just plain wrong.”

English was also offended by the fact that Samantha McEachin (the attorney assigned to the NYSAC by the Department of State) repeatedly failed to return his telephone calls.

Paul Greene (who represented Garcia in the negotiations) suggested to the NYSAC that his client receive a six-month suspension. That was unacceptable to the commission, which was readying to temporarily suspend Ryan and schedule an administrative hearing when a bargain was struck.

The resolution could have been worse from a public policy point of view. It also could have been better.

Garcia’s victory over Haney was changed to “no contest” on each fighter’s official record. That was the correct resolution.

And Garcia was fined $10,000, payable to the commission, which was the maximum involuntary fine that the NYSAC could have imposed (although Ryan could have consented to a larger amount).

The problems begin with the forfeiture of Garcia’s “official purse” – the amount that Ryan received on fight night as paid to him by Golden Boy through the commission. Initially, the official purse was to have been roughly $2,000,000. After the penalty that Garcia paid for missing weight (believed to be $600,000) and other deductions, the “official purse” dropped to approximately $1,200,000.

But the forfeiture penalty has the feel of smoke and mirrors. The $1,200,000 is to be paid by Garcia to Golden Boy – not to the commission. That means it could be an unearned windfall for Golden Boy. Or quite possibly, Golden Boy has promised to give the money back to Ryan as a quid pro quo for his agreeing to the Consent Order.

It’s Golden Boy’s money. They can do what they want with it. With one limitation.

Under the terms of the bout contracts, Haney is entitled to 47 percent of the profits from the event. Logic dictates that Devin would claim that he’s entitled to 47% of any purse forfeiture that Golden Boy receives from Garcia.

And Haney might go further, filing suit against Garcia on grounds that there was ostarine in Ryan’s system (not hard to prove), that Garcia knowingly or negligently ingested it (harder), that the ostarine affected the outcome of the fight (harder still), and that Devin’s marketability has been adversely affected by what happened in the ring on April 20 (a slam dunk).

Now we come to the biggest issue – the length of the suspension negotiated between the NYSAC and Garcia. Some penalties should be eased by mitigating circumstances. Here, there are exacerbating circumstances such as Garcia blowing off the contract weight and his overall conduct in advance of the fight.

Garcia’s professional boxing license has been suspended until at least April 20, 2025, at which time he will be able to resume his ring career provided that he provides satisfactory evidence to the NYSAC that he is medically fit to fight. There’s a school of thought that two years would have been a more appropriate suspension. But the NYSAC didn’t want to go through litigation and what could have been a long embarrassing process.

The fly in the ointment is that the drug testing provision in the Consent Order (which relates to Garcia’s medical fitness) could be a sham. Prior to having his license reinstated, Garcia must submit one negative urine test result (not blood, only urine) from a WADA-accredited laboratory to the NYSAC. Garcia may choose the testing agency and the time frame for this one test. The agreement doesn’t specifically state what he must be tested for or the type of tests required. It only calls for “a urinalysis which does not indicate a positive result for illegal and/or prohibited substances as mandated by the Commission, including a negative result for Anabolic Agents.” This means that Garcia, hypothetically, could use banned performance enhancing drugs for the next eight months before cycling off and being tested and then have his license reinstated.

The Consent Order does state that the medical evidence must be “to the satisfaction of the Commission.” But a blind man could drive a large truck through that hole without putting a dent in the vehicle.

So what’s likely to happen next?

As Chris Algieri notes, “It’s a two-tiered legal system. It depends on who you are and how much money you’ve got. This is not really going to affect Ryan Garcia. Yes, it takes a win away, but Ryan Garcia doesn’t really care. He’s made a ton of money. He’ll probably be back in the ring by the beginning of next year.”

Correction . . . He’ll be back in the ring if —

RYAN GARCIA NEEDS HELP

In recent weeks, Ryan Garcia has indicated numerous times on social media that he’s retiring from boxing:

* “Y’all may catch me out and about but, as far as boxing, I don’t know. I’m over it. I may do acting or singing. I’m hurt and I’m done with it and everyone. The sad part is I’m a great boxer. And I entertain and knock people out. I’m sad bc I love boxing.”

* “Boxing will be alright without me. But sucks. I was fun in the game. And it was fun to punch people. Forget I existed everyone. I’m outty”

* “I’m officially retired.”

Few people take these posts seriously. Garcia is unlikely to retire from boxing of his own free will. But mental health issues might preclude him from fighting in the foreseeable future.

On June 8, 2024, Garcia was arrested at the Beverly Hills Waldorf Astoria Hotel and charged with felony vandalism after allegedly causing $15,000 worth of damage while having a meltdown. According to media reports, he was held for psychiatric observation for three days before being released.

On Sunday, June 9, Darin Chavez (a member of Ryan’s legal team) released a prepared statement that read, “We are aware of the recent arrest. This comes at an extraordinarily challenging time for Ryan, as he has been grappling with devastating news regarding his mother’s health. First and foremost, we urge everyone to respect Ryan’s privacy during this difficult period. Ryan has been open about his struggles with mental health over the years and at this time he is dealing with an immense emotional burden. The support and understanding from fans and the public are crucial as he navigates these personal challenges. We are working diligently to provide Ryan with the resources he needs. Our team is committed to ensuring that he receives the appropriate help and care to address both his immediate and long-term well-being. We ask for continued support and compassion as Ryan focuses on his family and his health at this time.”

That statement rubbed some people the wrong way. Soon after it was issued, I received an email from a fan who wrote, “What a child to act out and feel sorry for himself and blame his mother for his actions. He should stop thinking of himself and learn to think of her and how to be helpful to her. I’m not trying to claim moral superiority. It’s just that, when so many people have so little yet act with respect towards others, it is hard to watch.”

Or phrased differently, most of us have suffered grievous losses at one time or another in our lives. We didn’t respond by going out and trashing a hotel lobby.

Yet the enablers won’t be stilled. One day after Garcia entered into his settlement with the New York State Athletic Commission, Chavez and Guadalupe Valencia (another of Ryan’s attorneys) issued a statement that (with my comments in brackets) read:

“There is a lot of misinformation being disseminated [by Ryan Garcia and his legal team] about Ryan Garcia, However, the undisputed facts [they’re very much in dispute] are as follows. His positive test was the result of contaminated supplements [unlikely] of which he was unaware. The subsequent lab testing of the supplements proved to be in the billions of a gram [it was sixty times the legal threshold in New York and the supplements sent to the lab had been previously opened by Team Garcia]. And the two positive tests were in the billions and trillions, that every expert will attest to had absolutely no performance benefit [experts that Garcia’s attorneys hire aren’t ‘every expert’]. To be clear, Ryan Garcia’s sole advantage over Devin Haney was that he is simply a superior fighter [Ryan also had a significant size advantage as a consequence of not making weight and an illegal PED in his system on fight night]. Rest assured, there are multiple agendas [now we come to paranoia} that have been at play since Ryan’s clear and convincing win against Haney, and all those agendas have been aimed against King Ryan [enough said].”

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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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. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More

Published

20 hours ago

March 28, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-319-Rematches-in-Las-Vegas-Cancun-and-More

Rematches are the bedrock for prizefighting.

Return battles between rival boxers always means their first encounter was riveting and successful at the box office.

Six months after their first brutal battle Mikaela Mayer (20-2, 5 KOs) and Sandy Ryan (7-2-1, 3 KOs) will slug it out again for the WBO welterweight world title this time on Saturday, March 29, at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.

ESPN will show the Top Rank card live.

“It’s important for women’s boxing to have these rivalries and this is definitely up there as one of the top ones,” Mayer told the BBC.

If you follow Mayer’s career you know that somehow drama follows. Whether its back-and-forth beefs with fellow American fighters or controversial judging due to nationalism in countries abroad. The Southern California native who now trains in Las Vegas knows how to create the drama.

For female fighters self-promotion is a necessity.

Most boxing promoters refuse to step out of the usual process set for male boxers, not for female boxers. Things remain the same and have been for the last 70 years. Social media has brought changes but that has made promoters do even less.

No longer are there press conferences, instead announcements are made on social media to be drowned among the billions of other posts. It is not killing but diluting interest in the sport.

Women innately present a different advantage that few if any promoters are recognizing. So far in the past 25 years I have only seen two or three promoters actually ignite interest in female fighters. They saw the advantages and properly boosted interest in the women.

The fight breakdown

Mayer has won world titles in the super featherweight and now the welterweight division. Those are two vastly different weight classes and prove her fighting abilities are based on skill not power or size.

Coaching Mayer since amateurs remains Al Mitchell and now Kofi Jantuah who replaced Kay Koroma the current trainer for Sandy Ryan.

That was the reason drama ignited during their first battle. Then came someone tossing paint at Ryan the day of their first fight.

More drama.

During their first fight both battled to control the initiative with Mayer out-punching the British fighter by a slender margin. It was a back-and-forth struggle with each absorbing blows and retaliating immediately.

New York City got its money’s worth.

Ryan had risen to the elite level rapidly since losing to Erica Farias three years ago. Though she was physically bigger and younger, she was out-maneuvered and defeated by the wily veteran from Argentina. In the rematch, however, Ryan made adjustments and won convincingly.

Can she make adjustments from her defeat to Mayer?

“I wanted the rematch straight away,” said Ryan on social media. “I’ve come to America again.”

Both fighters have size and reach. In their first clash it was evident that conditioning was not a concern as blows were fired nonstop in bunches. Mayer had the number of punches landed advantage and it unfolded with the judges giving her a majority decision win.

That was six months ago. Can she repeat the outcome?

Mayer has always had boiler-oven intensity. It’s not fake. Since her amateur days the slender Southern California blonde changes disposition all the way to red when lacing up the gloves. It’s something that can’t be taught.

Can she draw enough of that fire out again?

“I didn’t have to give her this rematch. I could have just sat it out, waited for Lauren Price to unify and fought for undisputed or faced someone else,” said Mayer to BBC. “That’s not the fighter I am though.”

Co-Main in Las Vegas

The co-main event pits Brian Norman Jr. (26-0, 20 KOs) facing Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1, 19 KOs) in a contest for the WBO welterweight title.

Norman, 24, was last seen a year ago dissecting a very good welterweight in Giovani Santillan for a knockout win in San Diego. He showed speed, skill and power in defeating Santillan in his hometown.

Cuevas has beaten some solid veteran talent but this will be his big test against Norman and his first attempt at winning a world title.

Also on the Top Rank card will be Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington and Emiliano Vargas, the son of Fernando Vargas, in separate bouts.

Golden Boy in Cancun

A rematch between undefeated William “Camaron” Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) and ex-champ Tevin Farmer (33-7-1, 8 KOs) headlines the lightweight match on Saturday March 29, at Cancun, Mexico.

In their first encounter Zepeda was knocked down in the fourth round but rallied to win a split-decision over Farmer. It showed the flaws in Zepeda’s tornado style.

DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also includes a clash between Yokasta Valle the WBC minimumweight world titlist who is moving up to flyweight to face former flyweight champion Marlen Esparza.

Both Valle and Esparza have fast hands.

Valle is excellent darting in and out while Esparza has learned how to fight inside. It’s a toss-up fight.

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 12 p.m. Cameron Vuong (7-0) vs Jordan Flynn (11-0-1); Pat Brown (0-0) vs Federico Grandone (7-4-2).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. William Zepeda (32-0) vs Tevin Farmer (33-7-1); Yokasta Valle (32-3) vs Marlen Esparza (15-2).

Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Mikaela Mayer (20-2) vs Sandy Ryan (7-2-1); Brian Norman Jr. (26-0) vs Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1).

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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Boxing Odds and Ends: The Wacky and Sad World of Livingstone Bramble and More

Published

2 days ago

March 27, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Boxing-Odds-and-Ends-The-Wacky-and-Sad-World-of-Livingstone-Bramble-and-More

One couldn’t write a book about prizefighting’s most eccentric characters without including former lightweight champion Livingstone Bramble who passed away last Saturday (March 22) at age 64 in Las Vegas. The Bramble chapter might well be the longest chapter in the book.

Born on the island of St. Kitt’s and raised in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, Bramble had his first 22 pro fights in New Jersey, nine at Ice World where he made his pro debut. A 3,000-seat hockey rink in Totowa, a community in Northern New Jersey roughly equidistant between Newark and the state capitol of Paterson, Ice World was the stomping ground of Main Events, a family-run enterprise founded by former labor lawyer Dan Duva, the oldest son of colorful boxing trainer Lou Duva who was effectively the face of the operation.

Bramble burst into prominence on June 1, 1984, when, in his twenty-third pro fight, he upset Ray “Boom” Mancini at Buffalo’s War Memorial Auditorium, taking away Mancini’s WBA world lightweight title.

Referee Marty Denkin stopped the fight in the 14^th stanza with Boom Boom on his feet but in very bad shape. Bramble dominated the second half of the fight but was yet trailing on two of the scorecards, a potential scandal that was averted when he took the fight out of the judges’ hands. They fought again 11 months later in Reno and Bramble won a narrow but fair 15-round decision, out-pointing Mancini by 1 point on all three cards.

Bramble’s eccentricities overshadowed his feats in the ring. He owned a boa constrictor named Dog and a pit bull terrier named Snake. A Rastafarian, he trained with reggae music in the background, braided his hair before it was fashionable, and began his public workouts by having his trainer blow soap bubbles which he popped with his fists. Prior to both Mancini fights, he had a voodoo witch doctor place a hex on Boom Boom (the man was exposed as Bramble’s former middle school basketball coach).

After the second Mancini fight, Bramble successfully defended his title with a 13^th-round stoppage of Tyrone “Butterfly” Crawley, but he was then shocked by Edwin Rosario who became a lightweight champion for the second time when he knocked out Bramble in the second round at an outdoor stadium in Miami Beach. Rosario’s upset spoiled a lucrative unification fight between Bramble and Hector Camacho.

Attempting to fight his way back into title contention, Bramble never did get over the hump. His best win as a former champion was a second-round knockout of junior welterweight Harold Brazier, a boxer who would be stopped only one other time, that coming late in a 124-fight career. Bramble took that fight on nine days’ notice, subbing for Micky Ward who pulled out with a hand injury.

Bramble eventually devolved into a gatekeeper, a diplomatic term for a professional loser. He won only three of his last 16 fights to finish 40-26-3.

Late in his career, Bramble settled in Las Vegas. He was 41 years old when he made his first and only ring appearance in his adopted hometown. It came at the Orleans, an off-Strip property where he was paired against Guadalajara journeyman Juan Carlos Rodriguez who had lost seven of his previous nine heading in. At the time, Bramble was preparing for his life after boxing by taking a class for aspiring slot machine technicians.

Bramble lost a wide 10-round decision. “[He] couldn’t get his jab working or put his punches together in a disappointing performance,” wrote Review-Journal ringside reporter Royce Feour. The bout’s matchmaker Brad Goodman was more scathing in his assessment. “Bramble should retire,” said Goodman. “He can’t pull the trigger. His mind was telling him to do something, but his body was not reacting.”

Bramble had four more fights, the last two 6-rounders on small cards in Idaho and Utah. All told, he answered the bell as a pro for 498 rounds.

Jacob “Stitch” Duran, boxing’s most prominent cutman, was new in town and scrounging for work when he first met Livingstone Bramble. They met at the long-shuttered Golden Gloves gym.

“I approached him and asked ‘when is your next fight?’” recalled Duran. “He looked me in the eye and said, ‘right now if you don’t shut up.’”

Duran was taken aback, but then Bramble smiled his radiant smile and Duran knew he was being spoofed. He would eventually work the pads for Bramble and the two became fast friends.

Livingstone Bramble spent his final years in an assisted living facility in Las Vegas, the cost of which, notes Duran, was born by the World Boxing Council which has a fund set aside to assist former professional boxers who have fallen on hard times.

Duran had a habit of visiting Bramble every week but stopped when the boxer could no longer recognize him. “I told his son that I just couldn’t do it anymore, it was too heartbreaking, and that I wanted to remember his dad the way that he was,” Duran told this reporter. “His son was very understanding.”

Stitch Duran remembers the exact time when he was informed that his friend had died. The call from Bramble’s son came at 3:44 in the morning.

News travels fast in the digital age and after Las Vegas fight writer Kevin Iole shared the news of Bramble’s departure on his website, other news outlets quickly latched hold of the info. What’s missing is a formal obituary and funeral arrangements. As yet, there are none.

Bobby Czyz

Livingstone Bramble and Bobby Czyz were stablemates whose careers ran on parallel paths and sometimes intersected. Both earned their spurs on Main Events promotions at Ice World.

The headline attraction on the card where Livingstone Bramble made his pro debut was a match between Bobby Czyz and Tommy Merola, young middleweight prospects. He and Bramble were on the same bill again the following year. The May 21, 1981 event was reportedly the first advance sellout of a boxing card in Totowa.

The brainy Czyz, who finished sixth of 365 in his high school graduation class according to a story in the New York Times, went on to win world titles as a light heavyweight and a cruiserweight. He had a promising career as a Showtime boxing commentator when he hung up his gloves.

Czyz lost that gig (we won’t elaborate) and things went downhill from there. In the summer of 2018, he was discovered working as a cashier in a New Jersey grocery store by a reporter for the Newark Star Ledger.

In December of last year, Bobby Czyz, now 63 years old, was diagnosed with brain cancer. And that brings us to this Sunday (March 30) when a benefit will be held for Czyz at the Elks Lodge located at 242 Chestnut Street in Nutley, New Jersey. A number of boxing luminaries of yesteryear will be in attendance at the event which commences at 1 pm. Tickets to the fundraiser, which are tax-deductible, start at $100.

At last look, the event was a near-sellout. Those interested in attending or just supporting Bobby in this battle should go to this website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/battle-for-bobby-czyz-tickets-1243505882569

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A Paean to George Foreman (1949-2025), Architect of an Amazing Second Act

Published

5 days ago

March 24, 2025

Arne K. Lang

A-Paean-to-George-Foreman-1949-2025-Architect-of-an-Amazing-Second-Act

George Foreman had two careers as a prizefighter. He finished his first career with a record of 45-2 and his second career with a record of 31-3.

The two careers were interrupted by a 10-year intermission. During the lacuna, George morphed seamlessly into a different person. The first George Foreman was menacing and the second George Foreman was cuddly. But in both incarnations, Foreman was larger than life. It seemed as if he would be with us forever.

George Foreman, born in 1949 in Marshall, Texas, a suburb of Houston, learned to box in the Job Corps, a federally-funded vocational training program central to President Lyndon Johnson’s anti-poverty initiative. He was already well-known when he made his pro debut in 1969 on a card at Madison Square Garden topped by an alluring contest between Joe Frazier and Jerry Quarry.

The previous year, at the Olympic Summer Games in Mexico City, George endeared himself to the vast majority of white Americans (and many African-Americans too) by parading around the ring clutching a tiny American flag in his right hand after winning his gold medal match with a second-round stoppage of his Russian opponent. The scene was viewed by millions on television and the picture of it graced the front page of many large-circulation American papers.

The image would not have resonated as strongly if not for the actions of medal-winning American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos. Ten days earlier, at the same Summer Games, Smith and Carlos stood on the podium with their black-gloved fists clenched high in a black power salute during the playing of the National Anthem. Big George, although only 19 years old, was hailed as a patriot, an antidote to those that would tear apart (or further rent) the fabric of American society.

Foreman squandered the admiration that flowed his way with his disposition. He didn’t handle the demands of celebrityhood very well. Reporters found him stand-offish if not downright surly. But he kept winning.

Foreman was never better than on the night of Jan. 22, 1973, when he conquered defending heavyweight champion Joe Frazier in less than two rounds at Kingston, Jamaica. Frazier, like Foreman, unbeaten and a former Olympic gold medalist, was as high as a 5/1 favorite in U.S. precincts, but George demolished him. Frazier was up and down like a yo-yo, six times in all, during the brief encounter.

In his next two fights, Foreman knocked out veteran Puerto Rican campaigner Joe Roman in the opening round and took out Ken Norton in the second frame, the same Ken Norton who had fought 24 rounds with Muhammad Ali, winning and losing split decisions.

Then came the iconic Rumble in the Jungle and we know what happened there. Riding a skein of 24 wins inside the distance, Foreman entered that contest with a record of 40-0 and the prevailing sentiment among the cognoscenti was that he would horizontalize Muhammad Ali in the same fashion as he had starched most of his other victims.

Following this setback, Foreman sat out all of 1976. He would have six more fights before his goodbye starting with a bout at Caesars Palace with Ron Lyle.

Foreman bombed out Lyle in the fifth frame of a back-and-forth slugfest that would be named The Ring magazine Fight of the Year. Four more knockouts would follow beginning with a fifth-round stoppage of Joe Frazier in their second and final meeting and then came a date in San Juan with Jimmy Young, a cutie from Philadelphia.

Foreman and Young met on a sultry afternoon in March of 1977 at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum, a building with no air-conditioning. Foreman nearly took Young out in the seventh round of the 12-round contest but ran out of gas and lost a unanimous decision.

In his dressing room after the fight, Foreman experienced an epiphany and became a born-again Christian. His trainer Gil Glancy rationalized the voices that Foreman heard in his head as a hallucination born of heat prostration, but George was having none of it. He returned to Houston where he could be found evangelizing on street corners or preaching as a guest pastor in storefront churches. His Rolls Royce was gone, replaced by a Volkswagen, and he found coveralls more to his liking than the fancy silk suits he had once purchased in bulk. He eventually established his own church, the Church of Lord Jesus Christ, and became an ordained minister.

ACT TWO

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “There are no second acts in American lives,” but Fitzgerald never met Reverend George Foreman.

Foreman’s second act began on March 9, 1987, before an announced crowd of 5,555 at Arco Arena in Sacramento with a fourth-round stoppage of journeyman Steve Zouski. He told reporters in attendance that he would use his purse, reportedly $24,000, to build a youth center but the cynics were of the opinion that every penny would go into his coffers as expensive divorces and other burdens had exhausted his savings. When George passed the collection plate at his church, wisecracked the wiseguys, all that came back was lint.

Although Foreman had been out of action for a decade, it seemed much longer. By then, Muhammad Ali had fallen into decrepitude, dating an entire generation of heavyweights as relics. In appearance and in fighting style, Foreman scarcely resembled his former self which had the sensory effect of elongating the gap in his timeline. The new George Foreman shaved his head bald and his torso was more massive. When he sallied out of his dressing room, Hall of Fame boxing writer Graham Houston likened the impression to that of an ancient battleship coming out of the mist.

This reporter was ringside for Foreman’s second comeback fight at the Oakland Coliseum where he was paired against Charles Hostetter, a smallish heavyweight packaged as the heavyweight champion of Texas. Hostetter folded his tent in the third round, taking a knee like a quarterback running out the clock at the end of a football game. Foreman carried 247 pounds, 20 pounds less than what he had carried for Zouski but nearly 30 pounds more than what he had carried in his first meeting with Joe Frazier.

The Hostetter fight was a set-up, as were many of Foreman’s fights in the first two years of his comeback, but Big George never cheated himself. Away from the probing eye of reporters, he always went the extra mile in his workouts.

Foreman stayed busy, but his comeback proceeded in fits and starts. In his eighth comeback fight, he stopped Dwight Muhammad Qawi in the seventh round (more exactly, Qawi quit, turning his back on the referee to signal that he was finished) at Caesars Palace, but it was a lackluster performance by George whose punches were slow and often missed the mark. This was the same Dwight Muhammad Qawi who had given Evander Holyfield a tough tussle in a 15-round barnburner when both were cruiserweights, but against Foreman the “Camden Buzzsaw” was a bloated butterball, carrying 222 pounds on his five-foot-seven frame.

The bout’s promoter, Bob Arum, exhorted Foreman go back to the bushes to freshen-up and when George returned to the ring nine weeks later it was in Alaska in an off-TV fight against an opponent with a losing record.

But Foreman’s confidence never wavered and when he finally lured a big-name opponent into the ring, Gerry Cooney, he was more than ready. They met on Jan. 16, 1990, at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.

At age 33, Cooney was also on the comeback trail. He hadn’t fought in two-and-half years, not since being stopped in the fifth round by Michael Spinks in this same ring. Since his mega-fight with Larry Holmes in mid-1982, he had answered the bell for only 12 rounds. But, rusty or not, Cooney still possessed a sledgehammer of a left hook.

Cooney landed the harder punches in the first round and won the round on all three cards, but Big George was just warming up. In the second stanza, he decked Cooney twice. The second knockdown was so harsh that referee Joe Cortez waived the fight off without starting a count.

“He smote him,” wrote Phil Berger for his story in the New York Times. “The Punching Preacher gained a flock of converts,” said Bernard Fernandez in the Philadelphia Daily News.

Foreman called out Mike Tyson after the fight. The wheels were set in motion when they shared top billing on a card at Caesars Palace in June of 1990 (Tyson knocked out former amateur rival Henry Tillman in the opening round; Foreman dismissed the Brazilian, Adilson Rodrigues, in round two), but the match never did come to fruition and Foreman, tired of waiting, set his sights on Evander Holyfield who owned two of the three meaningful pieces of the world heavyweight title.

An Adonis-physiqued gladiator renowned for his vitality, Holyfield, 28, figured to be too good and too fast for Foreman. If Evander set a fast pace, Foreman, it seemed, would eventually crumble from exhaustion. “Hopefully Holyfield will take it easy on him,” wrote the sports editor of the Tennessean. “There’s no glory to be gained in mugging a senior citizen.”

Holyfield won the fight, but Foreman – the oldest man to challenge for a world title in any weight division to that point in time — won the hearts of America with his buoyant performance. On several occasions Holyfield rattled him, but Big George kept coming back for more and at the finish it was he, improbably, who seemed to have more fuel in his tank. After trouncing Gerry Cooney, casual fans, at least most of them, finally took him seriously and with his gallant performance against Holyfield, he graduated into a full-fledged American folk hero. One would be hard-pressed to find an example of a boxer elevating his stature to such an extent in a match that he lost.

There was more to George Foreman’s growing popularity. He proved to be a great salesman, leavening his fistic fearsomeness with self-effacing humor. He developed an amusing shtick that played off his fondness for cheeseburgers and he became a popular guest on the talk show circuit. “Is this Adilson Rodrigues a good fighter?” inquired Johnny Carson. “I sure hope not,” deadpanned Foreman.

History would show that Big George wasn’t done making miracles, but there were potholes in his path. He had ended the Holyfield fight with a puffy face and with swelling around both of his eyes, but he looked a lot worse following his 10-round match with Alex Stewart in April of 1992. At the final bell, his face was a bloody mess and both of his eyes were swollen nearly shut. Fortunately, he scored two knockdowns in the second stanza, without which he would have been on the wrong side of a split decision.

Two fights later, he was out-pointed by Tommy Morrison in a bout sanctioned as a world title fight by the fledgling and lightly-regarded World Boxing Organization (WBO). Purportedly a distant relative of John Wayne, “Tommy the Duke” had the equalizer, a Cooney-ish left hook, but there were holes in his defense. A slugfest on paper, this bout played out like a chess match. Go figure.

Eighteen months after his lackluster showing against Morrison, Foreman got another shot at the world heavyweight title, thrust against Michael Moorer who had upset Holyfield to win the WBA and IBF (and lineal) titles. (The WBC version was held by Lennox Lewis; Mike Tyson was in prison.) A former light heavyweight champion who had successfully defended that diadem nine times, Moorer, not quite 27 years old, was undefeated in 35 fights with 30 knockouts.

The match-up was widely disparaged because of the alphabet soup nonsense and because Foreman was coming off a loss. “Big George has been good for the game, but has outstayed his welcome,” wrote Harry Mullen. The noted British scribe, who had been ringside for Larry Holmes’ beatdown of Muhammad Ali, told his readers that he wouldn’t be going to Las Vegas to see the fight because he just couldn’t stomach yet another dispiriting spectacle. “The most likely outcome,” he said, “is a prolonged and painful beating.”

At this juncture of his life, Foreman didn’t need the money. Although his TV sitcom “George” had been cancelled after only eight episodes (George played a retired boxer who starts an after-school program for inner-city kids), he had money rolling in from a slew of endorsements. McDonald’s, KFC, Frito-Lay, Oscar Meyer – you name it – and Big George was a “brand ambassador.” With his purse of no great importance in the big picture, George’s only incentive for defeating Moorer was his pride.

Through nine rounds, Moorer vs. Foreman was a tedious affair. Moorer was ahead by a commanding 5 points on two of the scorecards while the third judge had Moorer ahead by only 1. Foreman, who scored 68 knockouts over the course of his pro career, always had a puncher’s chance, no matter the opponent, but there was no inkling of the thunderclap that would come. This was shaping up as the sort of fight that would have the patrons streaming to the exits before the final bell.

The thunderclap arrived in the final minute of the 10^th frame. It was a classic British punch in execution, a stiff right hand delivered straight from the shoulder. The punch didn’t travel far, but landed smack on Moorer’s jaw. His face went blank and he fell to the canvas where he lay prone as the referee counted him out. Before the stupefied crowd had a chance to soak it all in, Foreman dropped to his knees in prayer. Many were misty-eyed as ring announcer Michael Buffer made it formal, orating the particulars.

Six days after the 20^th anniversary of the Rumble in the Jungle, Big George Foreman had rolled back the clock, recapturing the world heavyweight title, or at least pieces of it, capping the most astonishing comeback in the history of human endurance sports.

Foreman would have four more fights before leaving the sport for good two months shy of his 49^th birthday. We won’t delve into those bouts other than noting that he was fortunate to get the nod over Axel Schulz and unfortunate to lose to Shannon Briggs in his farewell fight, a narrow decision widely assailed as a heist.

And the money kept rolling in. In 1994, the year that Foreman conquered Michael Moorer, a portable indoor grill that came to be called the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine was introduced to the public. The contraption proved so popular that Foreman, the TV pitchman and the face of it, reaped a reported $200 million in royalties, more money than he had earned in all of his prizefights combined.

They say you can never go home again, to which Big George replied , “bah, humbug.”

Foreman’s heroics during his Second Act put a spring my step and had the same effect on many others. In the words of the inimitable Jim Murray, he was a hero to every middle-aged man and older who looked in the mirror and saw some stranger looking back at him.

Thank you, George, thanks for the memories. Rest in peace

***

Note: TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2016 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020. Several of the passages in this story were extracted from that book.

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