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The Hauser Report: James Earl Jones and More
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A word of remembrance about James Earl Jones who died on September 9 at age 93.
Born in Mississippi during the height of segregation, raised by his grandmother after being abandoned by his parents, and plagued by a stutter so severe that he often refused to speak when he was young, Jones became one of the great actors of modern times. During a storied career on stage, in movies, and on television, he was honored with an Oscar, a Tony, and an Emmy. He was the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars and Mufasa in The Lion King and known the world over for his iconic intonation “This is CNN.”
“Audiences,” Robert McFadden wrote, “were mesmerized by the voice. It was Lear’s roaring crash into madness, Othello’s sweet balm for Desdemona, Oberon’s last rapture for Titania. He liked to portray kings and generals, garbage men and bricklayers.”
Jones was recognized in theatrical circles as an extraordinary talent for years. But boxing propelled him to mainstream stardom.
In 1968, The Great White Hope opened on Broadway with Jones (6-feet-2-inches tall, 200 pounds) in the role of Jack Jefferson – a character modeled on Jack Johnson. Jones didn’t like boxing. “I’m not and never have been a fan of boxing,” he told me years later. “I had an unfortunate experience at a fight I went to long ago in Spain. A Nigerian fighter was killed in front of my eyes.”
But Jones played the role of Jack Jefferson to perfection and, two years later, reprised the role in the film adaptation. I had the honor of interviewing him when I was researching Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times.
“I met Muhammad Ali for the first time backstage after a performance of The Great White Hope, “Jones reminisced. “Ali was still not allowed to fight, and meeting him was exciting, particularly given his response to the play he’d just seen. He said of Johnson, ‛That’s me. You take out the white woman, and that play is about me.’ Then he told me, ‘I want to go on stage and say those lines.’ He was referring to the scene where the Jack Johnson character is in exile in Europe. He’s been reduced to performances of Uncle Tom’s Cabin to earn a living, and the powers that be keep pursuing him, hoping to get him to agree to a title fight with a prearranged loss. Finally, they talk him into coming back to fight with the idea of turning the crown over to Jess Willard in Cuba. And the character says, ‘Come get me. Here I is!’
“We waited until the audience had left,” Jones continued. “Then Ali went out onto the stage and spoke to an empty theater. ‘Here I is! Here I is!’ He felt those lines expressed his life, and he spoke them with feeling.”
As for Ali’s own acting ability, Jones contemplated Muhammad’s extraordinary charisma and noted, “I wondered at the time, could he translate that into the craft of acting, which is using somebody else’s lines, which is the most difficult thing for any natural performer to do? I never saw him when he played in Buck White, because I was working somewhere else myself. I did see him on television much later in Freedom Road. And I played Malcolm X in two very short scenes in The Greatest, where Ali played himself but was essentially reading someone else’s lines. And what I found was, given his own words he was a great performer. But given somebody else’s words, there was a self-consciousness that he was unable to overcome. So he wasn’t a great craftsman in the art of acting, but that by no means takes away from his accomplishments. Ali represents America to me; power at its best, power well used, because real power is individual power. And each time we reconsider Ali, we realize there’s more to him and more value than we realized before.”
And there was a footnote to it all.
“Ali visited the set at Twentieth Century Fox when we were filming The Great White Hope,” Jones recalled. “We got in the ring together. We were both wearing boxing gloves. The photographers were busy flashing. Muhammad said, ‘Go ahead, hit me as hard as you can.’ Well, I’d played the Jack Johnson character since the play opened on Broadway. I‘d been put through my paces by real boxing trainers. So I gave Muhammad my best left hook. He blocked the blow. And in the process, quite accidentally, he broke my thumb. You know, when a fighter like Ali blocks a punch, the block is devastating in its own power. I felt the pain immediately.”
***
The main event at Madison Square Garden between Sandy Ryan and Mikaela Mayer didn’t start until Saturday morning at 12:45 AM. But it was worth the wait.
Ryan, age 31, came into the fight with a 7-1-1 (3 KOs) record. She won the WBO 147-pound title by decision over Maria Pier Houle last year, kept it on a draw against Jessica McCaskill, and stopped Terri Harper in four rounds this past March.
Mayer, age 34 (and now 20-2 with 5 KOs), once held the WBO 130-pound belt but lost a close decision in a title-unification bout against Alycia Baumgardner two years ago. She has since moved up to welterweight and was narrowly defeated by Natasha Jones in an IBF title fight in January of this year.
An element of bad blood was injected into the proceedings when trainer Kay Koroma (who had previously worked with Mayer) began working with Ryan, leaving Mayer in the hands of Kofi Jantuah. Then, as Team Ryan was leaving its hotel for Madison Square Garden on fight night, an attacker wearing a hoodie splashed Sandy with red paint and escaped in a waiting car with an accomplice.
Ryan was a slight betting favorite. The encounter shaped up as a competitive fight but turned out to be much more than that. It was an exceptionally good, non-stop action battle.
Ryan moved inexorably forward and Mayer couldn’t keep her off. But it wasn’t always effective aggression and Mikaela held her own on the inside. Each woman went effectively to the body which is a weapon often absent from the arsenal in women’s boxing. Both fighters were in good shape. Ryan was physically stronger.
It was a hard fight to score. According to CompuBox (which is an inexact science) Mayer landed 186 punches to Ryan’s 185. All three judges gave rounds eight and ten to Mayer. Those were the only rounds they scored alike.
I thought each woman clearly won three rounds with the other four up for grabs. The judges scored the bout 97-93, 96-94, 95-95 for a majority decision in Mayer’s favor.
A rematch is definitely in order.
***
Question: What do Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum (who oversaw the fights that stretched from 6:40 on Friday evening till 1:20 on Saturday morning), Mae West, Bobby Fischer, and Barbra Streisand have in common?
Answer: They all went to Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn.
Erasmus was founded in 1786 as a private institution and became part of the New York City public school system in 1896. Arum graduated in 1949 and is one of the school’s many famous alumni.
Erasmus graduates who made a mark in the National Football League include Hall of Fame quarterback Sid Luckman, owner Al Davis, and coach Sam Rutigliano. Jerry Reinsdorf (who owns the Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox) and baseball hall of fame pitcher Waite Hoyt went to Erasmus, as did NBA all-star forward and championship coach Billy Cunningham.
Bobby Fischer (arguably the greatest chess player of all time) attended Erasmus. So did former New Jersey governor James Florio and author Mickey Spillane.
Then we come to the world of entertainment. Oscar winner Susan Hayward and opera diva Beverly Sills (whose original name was Belle Miriam Silverman) are on the list of Erasmus attendees. So is Mae West (the quintessential sex symbol of the 1920s and 1930s who at one point was the highest-paid woman in the United States and starred in films opposite Cary Grant).
“I never met Mae West,” Arum says. “But I enjoyed watching her movies; that’s for sure.”
Record company executive Clive Davis (who graduated from Erasmus and counts Bruce Springsteen, Janis Joplin, and Billy Joel among his signees) is a lifelong friend of Arum’s.
“Neil Diamond, I know because he wrote Sweet Caroline,” Arum adds, referencing another Erasmus alumnus. “That’s boxing’s new anthem, and my granddaughter’s name is Caroline.”
And finally – drumroll, please – there’s Barbra Streisand (Erasmus, Class of 1959). “I’ve met her,” Arum recounts. “But she wasn’t very friendly.”
***
The New York State Athletic Commission took a step in the right direction on Saturday when Matt Delaglio was named executive director.
Delagio served as director of boxing during the rocky tenure of Kim Sumbler who resigned as executive director in May of this year. He was then designated as acting executive director, but there were fears in boxing circles that he would be passed over for the job on a permanent basis in favor of a less qualified political appointee. Those fears have now been laid to rest.
The next thing Governor Kathy Hochul needs to do is upgrade the NYSAC at the commissioner level.
In theory, the NYSAC is overseen by five commissioners. Two of these positions are currently vacant. Too often, NYSAC commissioner appointments are made as trade-offs for political favors. The result is that, because of uninformed leadership, the NYSAC has been known to embarrass itself.
Delagio is a hard worker and conscientious public servant who understands the sport and business of boxing. It would be nice if Governor Hochul appointed two new commissioners who understand the sport and business of boxing as well as he does and have the same commitment to public service that he has.
PICTURED: James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander, his co-star in the Broadway and film versions of “The Great White Hope.”
Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at Amazon.com. https://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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Cain Sandoval KOs Mark Bernaldez in the Featured Bout at Santa Ynez
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Northern California’s Cain Sandoval remained undefeated with a knockout win over Mark Bernaldez in a super lightweight battle on Friday on a 360 Promotions card.
Sandoval (15-0, 13 KOs) of Sacramento needed four rounds to figure out tough Filipino fighter Bernaldez (25-7, 14 KOs) in front of a packed crowd at Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez.
Bernaldez had gone eight rounds against Mexico’s very tough Oscar Duarte. He showed no fear for Sandoval’s reputed power and both fired bombs at each other from the second round on.
Things turned in favor of Sandoval when he targeted the body and soon had Bernaldez in retreat. It was apparent Sandoval had discovered a weakness.
In the beginning of the fourth Sandoval fired a stiff jab to the body that buckled Bernaldez but he did not go down. And when both resumed in firing position Sandoval connected with an overhand right and down went the Filipino fighter. He was counted out by referee Rudy Barragan at 34 seconds of the round.
“I’m surprised he took my jab to the body. I respect that. I have a knockout and I’m happy about that,” Sandoval said.
Other Bouts
Popular female fighter Lupe Medina (9-0) remained undefeated with a solid victory over the determined Agustina Vazquez (4-3-2) by unanimous decision after eight rounds in a minimumweight fight between Southern Californians.
Early on Vazquez gave Medina trouble disrupting her patter with solid jabs. And when Medina overloaded with combination punches, she was laced with counters from Vazquez during the first four rounds.
Things turned around in the fifth round as Medina used a jab to keep Vazquez at a preferred distance. And when she attacked it was no more than two-punch combination and maintaining a distance.
Vazquez proved determined but discovered clinching was not a good idea as Medina took advantage and overran her with blows. Still, Vazquez looked solid. All three judges saw it 79-73 for Medina.
A battle between Southern Californian’s saw Compton’s Christopher Rios (11-2) put on the pressure all eight rounds against Eastvale’s Daniel Barrera (8-1-1) and emerged the winner by majority decision in a flyweight battle.
It was Barrera’s first loss as a pro. He never could discover how to stay off the ropes and that proved his downfall. Neither fighter was knocked down but one judge saw it 76-76, and two others 79-73 for Rios.
In a welterweight fight Gor Yeritsyan (20-1,16 KOs) scorched Luis Ramos (23-7) with a 12-punch combination the sent him to the mat in the second round. After Ramos beat the count he was met with an eight punch volley and the fight was stopped at 2:11 of the second round by knockout.
Super feather prospect Abel Mejia (7-0, 5 KOs) floored Alfredo Diaz (9-12) in the fifth round but found the Mexican fighter to be very durable in their six-round fight. Mejia caught Diaz with a left hook in the fifth round for a knockdown. But the fight resumed with all three judges scoring it 60-53 for Mejia who fights out of El Modena, Calif.
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The Return of David Alaverdian
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By TSS Special Correspondent David Harazduk — After David Alaverdian (8-0-1, 6 KOs) scored a gritty victory against a tough Nicaraguan journeyman named Enrique Irias, his plans suddenly changed. The flashy flyweight from Nahariya, Israel hoped to face even tougher opposition and then challenge for a world title within a year or so. But a prolonged illness forced David to rip up the script.
The Irias fight was over 22 months ago. On Saturday, Feb. 22, Alaverdian will be making his first appearance in the ring since that win when he faces veteran road warrior Josue “Zurdo” Morales (31-16-4, 13 KOs) at the Westgate Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. It’s the fifth promotion by Las Vegas attorney Stephen Reid whose inaugural card was at this venue on Feb. 13, 2020.
“I’m excited to come back,” Alaverdian declared.
During his preparation for Irias two years ago, Alaverdian felt fatigue after a routine six-round sparring session. “It was on April 1, 2023, about ten days before my fight. It felt like an April Fool’s joke,” he said. He came down with a sore throat, a headache, and congestion. He soon developed trouble breathing. At first, he thought his seasonal asthma had flared up, but his condition soon worsened. No matter what he did, Alaverdian could no longer take deep breaths. Fatigue continued to plague him. His heart constantly raced. Instead of breathing from his diaphragm, he was breathing from his chest. He sought out numerous doctors in the United States and in Israel.
His symptoms were finally diagnosed as Dysfunctional Breathing (DB). DB is a condition that can stem from stress and is often misdiagnosed. Its symptoms include dyspnea and tachycardia, both of which David experienced.
While receiving treatment, the Vegas-based pro went back to Israel where he coached aspiring fighters. “David’s influence on Israeli boxing is amazing, because he shows we can succeed in a big business even though we come from a small country,” said another undefeated Israeli flyweight, 20-year-old Yonatan Landman (7-0, 7 KOs). “A lot more Israelis are going to dare to succeed.”
Landman was able to work with Alaverdian during David’s return to Israel. “He is a great guy and a friend,” Landman said. “He has a lot of willingness to help, share his knowledge, and help you move forward.”
Alaverdian finally started to feel like he could compete again eight months ago. He won last year’s Israeli national amateur championship and competed in Olympic qualifiers. Now, he’s preparing to fight as a professional once again. “He doesn’t mention anything about [his breathing issues] like he did before,” his coach Cedric Ferguson said about this camp. “He’s been working like there’s no issue at all.”
It has been a whirlwind week for the 31-year-old Alaverdian. In addition to putting the finishing touches on his preparation ahead of Saturday’s comeback fight, David got married on Tuesday. His mom came over from Israel for the wedding and will stay for the fight. “It’s a good distraction,” David said of this week’s significant events. “It helps me. That way I don’t have to focus on the fight all day.”
Josue Morales, a 32 year old from Houston, hopes to play spoiler on Saturday. The crafty southpaw has never been stopped during his 52-fight career. “He’s a seasoned guy with a lot of experience,” Alaverdian said of Morales. “He knows how to move around the ring and is more of a technical boxer. He’s a tough opponent for someone who has been out of the ring for two years.”
A win Saturday night would complete a monumental week for David Alaverdian, both in and out of the ring, repairing the once-shredded script.
Doors open at the Westgate fight arena at 6:30 pm. The first bout goes at 7:00. Seven fights are scheduled including an 8-round female fight between Las Vegas light flyweight Yadira Bustillos and Argentine veteran Tamara Demarco.
NOTE: Author David Harazduk has run The Jewish Boxing Blog since 2010. You can find him at Twitter/X @JewishBoxing and Instagram.
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Two Candidates for the Greatest Fight Card in Boxing History
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Two Candidates for the Greatest Fight Card in Boxing History
Saturday’s fight card in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, topped by the rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol for undisputed light heavyweight supremacy, was being hyped as the greatest boxing card ever. That was before Daniel Dubois took ill and had to pull out of his IBF world heavyweight title defense against Joseph Parker, yielding his slot to last-minute replacement Martin Bakole.
The view from here is that the card remains in the running for the best fight card ever, top to bottom. The public didn’t view Dubois as the legitimate heavyweight champion. That distinction goes to Oleksandr Usyk.
Terms like “greatest” are, of course, subjective. Are we referring to the most attractive match-ups or the greatest array of talent, or the card that gives the most satisfaction by churning out a multiplicity of entertaining fights?
We won’t know how satisfying this card is until after the fact. We won’t know whether the talent on display was the greatest ever assembled on one night until many years have passed. Contestants such as Shakur Stevenson, Vergil Ortiz Jr, and Hamzah Sheeraz are still in their twenties (Stevenson is the oldest of the three at age 27) and it’s too soon to gauge if they will leave the sport with a great legacy.
As for which fight card in history had the deepest pool of attractive match-ups, this is a query that is amenable to an operational definition. Betting lines are a useful tool for informing us whether or not a fight warrants our attention if the likelihood of witnessing a closely-contested bout is our primary consideration.
Based on these factors, I would submit that the current leader in the race for the best card ever assembled goes to Don King’s May 7, 1994 promotion at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Six future Hall of Famers – Julio Cesar Chavez, Ricardo Lopez, Azumah Nelson, Terry Norris, Julian Jackson, and Christy Martin — were on that card, an 11-fight, eight-hour marathon with five WBC world title fights, four of which were rematches.
These were the five title fights:
140 pounds: Julio Cesar Chavez (89-1-1, 77 KOs) vs. Frankie Randall (49-2-1, 39 KOs)
Odds: Chavez 3/1 (minus-300)
154 pounds: Terry Norris (37-4, 23 KOs) vs. Simon Brown (41-2, 30 KOs)
Odds: even (11/10 and take your pick)
160 pounds: Gerald McClellan (30-2, 28 KOs) vs. Julian Jackson (48-2, 45 KOs)
Odds: McClellan 7/2 (minus-350)
130 pounds: Azumah Nelson (37-2-2, 26 KOs) vs. Jesse James Leija (27-0-2, 13 KOs)
Odds: Nelson 17/10 (minus-170)
105 pounds: Ricardo Lopez (36-0, 27 KOs) vs. Kermin Guardia (21-0, 14 KOs)
Odds: none
Results
Chavez-Randall — Julio Cesar Chavez avenged his loss to Frankie Randall, but not without controversy. An accidental clash of heads in the eighth round left Chavez with a bad gash on his forehead. Ring physician Flip Homansky would have allowed the bout to continue if that had been Chavez’s preference, but El Gran Campeon wasn’t so inclined. A WBC rule specified that in the event of a significant injury accruing from an accidental head butt, the less-damaged fighter is penalized a point. The fight went to the scorecards where Chavez won a split decision that would have been a draw without the point deduction. The crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Chavez, but the big bets were mostly on Randall and the odds got nicked down on the day of the fight.
Brown-Norris — In their first meeting in December of the previous year, Simon Brown dominated Terry Norris from the opening bell before stopping him in the fourth round. It was a massive upset. Norris was in the conversation for the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. In the rematch, Norris opened a slight favorite, but the late money was on Brown. And, once again, the so-called “sharps” were on the wrong side. Terry Norris, the would-be avenger, won a comfortable decision.
McClellan-Jackson — A murderous puncher, Gerald McClellan bombed out Julian Jackson in 83 seconds, or four rounds quicker than in their first engagement. Jackson was also a murderous puncher and attracted money in the sports books, lowering the price on the victorious McClellan who yet remained a solid favorite.
Nelson-Leija – WBC President Jose Sulaiman mandated this rematch after the first meeting ended in a draw after an error was found in the tabulation of one of the scorecards, overturning the original verdict which had Nelson retaining his title on a split decision. Leija thought he was robbed and was the rightful winner in the do-over, outworking Nelson to win a unanimous decision. At age 35, Azumah was getting long in the tooth.
Lopez-Guardia – Before the digital age, bookmakers didn’t trifle to post lines on bouts that on paper were egregious mismatches, save perhaps a fight of great magnitude. Guardia, the Colombian challenger, overachieved by lasting the distance in a fight with no knockdowns, but “Finito” won a lopsided decision.
A Note on Odds
Betting lines serve a useful purpose for boxing historians; they quantify the magnitude of an upset. However, quoting odds is tricky because they are fluid and vary somewhat from place to place. What this means is that two journalists can quote different odds on the same event and they both can get it right – unless there is a significant disparity. The odds quoted above are the closing lines at the MGM Grand or, at the very least, a very close approximation.
Saturday in Riyadh
One reason why tomorrow’s fight card is the best ever, said the tub-thumpers, is that the card (in its original conformation) included seven world title fights. But that’s no big deal There are so many title fights nowadays that the term “world title” has been trivialized. And what wasn’t acknowledged is that three of the title fights were of the “interim” stripe.
However – and this is a big deal — a glance at the odds informs us that tomorrow’s card is chock-full of competitive match-ups (at least on paper) and from that aspect, a blend of quality and quantity, it is a doozy of a boxing card.
The greatest boxing linemaker of my generation, now deceased, once told me that any fight where the “chalk” was less than a 3/1 favorite is essentially a “pick-‘em” fight. Yes, I know that makes no sense mathematically. However, I know what he was getting at. In a baseball game, for example, it’s very rare to find a team favored by odds of more than 3/1. In boxing, where self-serving promoters are constantly feeding us King Kong vs. Mickey Mouse, odds higher than 3/1 are the norm.
As this is being written, there are six fights on Saturday’s card where one could play the favorite without laying more than 3/1. I believe this is unprecedented. Moreover, the main event and a fascinating match-up on the undercard, Vergil Ortiz Jr vs Israil Madrimov, are virtual toss-ups with the favorites, Beterbiev and Ortiz, currently available at 5/4 (minus-125). Another very intriguing fight is the heavyweight contest between late bloomers Agit Kabayel and Zhilei Zhang which finds the less-heralded Kabayel cloaked as a small favorite. And kudos to Joseph Parker for accepting Martin Bakole when he could have held out for a lesser opponent. If Bakole is in shape (a big “if”), he will be a handful.
And so, where does tomorrow’s card rank on the list of best boxing cards ever? Right up there near the top, we would argue, and, if the bouts in large part are memorably entertaining, we would push it ahead of Don King’s May 7, 1994 extravaganza.
That’s the view from here. Feel free to dissent.
Postscript: If you plan to watch the entire card ($25.99 on DAZN for U.S. buyers), it would help to stock up on some munchies. The first fight (Joshua Buatsi vs. Callum Smith) is scheduled to kick off at 8:45 a.m. for us viewers in the Pacific Time Zone / 11:45 a.m. ET. If the show adheres tight to its schedule (no guarantee), Beterbiev and Bivol are expected to enter the ring at 3:00 p.m. PT/6:00 p.m. ET.
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