In Cardiff, Wales tonight, Lauren Price won a world title in her seventh pro fight, snatching the WBA welterweight diadem from Chicago’s Jessica McCaskill in a bout that was stopped two seconds into the ninth round on the advice of the ringside doctor because of a grotesque bubble over McCaskill’s left eye. Because the swelling resulted from an accidental clash of heads, likely in the fifth round, the bout went to the scorecards where the outcome was a mere formality.

In winning, Price became the first female boxer from Wales to win a world title. And although one can rightly smirk at the notion of someone fighting for a title after only seven pro fights, the lady — who excelled in kickboxing and soccer in her younger days — is very good. The 29-year-old southpaw concluded her amateur career with 18 straight wins climaxed by a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics and as a pro she has yet to lose a round!

A former unified 140-pound champion, McCaskill (12-4-1) repeatedly bull-rushed Price with her head down, but Price, the younger fighter by 10 years, was too slick for the rough-housing.

Interviewed after the fight, Price said “I respect [Jessica], she’s a credit to women’s boxing and boxing in general…I want to build a legacy and create greatness. This is just a start. You see what Katie Taylor did for Ireland. I want to do the same for Wales.”

The greatest Welsh boxer of the modern era, hands down, is Joe Calzaghe. In the women’s department, Lauren Price is now the gold standard.

Co-Feature

In a 10-round battle between feather-fisted featherweights, Rhys Edwards, a 24-year-old Welshman scored a unanimous decision over England’s Thomas Patrick Ward who entered the contest with a record of 34-1-1 but only five knockouts to his credit. The judges had it 99-91 and 98-92 tice which was somewhat misleading as many of the rounds were close.

A former British 122-pound champion, Ward forced the action during most of the fight, but Edwards (16-0, 4 KOs) came on strong in the homestretch.

Also

Hughie Fury (Tyson’s cousin) blew away Patrick Korte, stopping the 40-year-old German import in the second round. Korte was never off his feet, but the end came quickly after Fury staggered him with a right hand. The official time was 2:06 of round two.

A six-foot-six Mancunian, Fury turned pro at age 18 and was a busy beaver. Ten months into his pro career, he was 12-0 and there was talk that he might ultimately prove to be better than his cousin, talk that ended when he lost to Joseph Parker, Kubrat Pulev, and Alexander Povetkin in dull 12-round fights. Then he fell off the map because of various injuries and was out of the ring for 30 months.

He returned three weeks ago, scoring a six-round decision over an opponent with a losing record. Tonight’s win elevated his record to 28-3 (16). Korte’s record declined to 27-4-1, but this is misleading. In all four of his losses, he was stopped inside of the first three rounds.

Hughie Fury expects to be back in action next month. The next phase of his career may be as frenetic as when he was first starting out.

Photo credit: Lawrence Lustig . BOXXER

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Kenny Adams will be formally enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame and Museum in Canastota, New York, next month. It is a long overdue honor for the longtime Las Vegas boxing coach who turns 84 in September.

Adams grew up in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where he was raised by a great aunt and her husband. He had his first amateur fight at age 11 in Sikeston, Missouri, and dozens more in smokers in other nearby towns. Upon graduation, he enlisted in the Army where he was a two-time all-service champion and was part of an elite squadron that worked behind enemy lines during the Vietnam War. He would eventually rise to the rank of Master Sergeant.

Adams first attracted attention as the coach of an Army team that dominated inter-service competitions. After serving as an assistant on the 1984 U.S. Olympic team, he was named head coach of the 1988 squad for the Seoul Summer Games.

The U.S. dominated the boxing competition at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, winning a gold medal in nine of the 12 weight categories, but that achievement should probably come with an asterisk. The Soviets boycotted the Games as did the powerful East Germany contingent.

Expectations were low for the 1988 squad which lacked a charismatic personality. There was no Sugar Ray Leonard or Mark Breland to whet the interest of America’s top sports scribes. The fighter that got the most pre-tournament buzz was Kelcie Banks, a spindly featherweight from Chicago who would be knocked out in the opening round.

Defying the odds, the Americans won three gold medals and two silvers. Heavyweight Ray Mercer, light heavyweight Andrew Maynard, and bantamweight Kennedy McKinney won gold. All three were Army men. Light middleweight Roy Jones Jr and light flyweight Michael Carbajal had to settle for silver after losing controversial decisions in the finals. Jones’ setback to his South Korean opponent was considered so rancid that he was named the tournament’s outstanding boxer.

Adams acknowledges the role played by his top assistants, Hank Johnson, an Army combat medic and the brother of light heavyweight champion Marvin Johnson, and Alton Merkerson, best known as the trainer of Roy Jones Jr. However, Kenny gives himself full credit for selecting the venue where the Army fighters trained for the Summer Games.

He chose Fort Huachuca, an Army installation near the Mexican border in Cochise County, Arizona. “It was perfect,” says Adams, “very secluded. A boxer couldn’t leave the base or have a visitor without us knowing about it.” (The nearest good-sized city was Tucson and that is 77 miles away.)

After the 1988 Games, as Adams was finishing up a 30-year hitch, Top Rank came calling with the proverbial offer too good to refuse. Bob Arum was putting together a syndicate to manage the careers of some of the top amateur boxers who were about to turn pro and he wanted Adams to coach them.

Notable members of the syndicate, which took the name Las Vegas Gloves, were Las Vegas businessman/restaurateur Freddie Glusman, future Las Vegas mayor Ron Lurie, and UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian. The fighters entrusted to Adams included McKinney, the most prized of the signees, Vincent Phillips, Cleveland Woods, and Eddie Cook, all former U.S. Army soldiers, plus Freddie Norwood, a boyhood friend of Cook from St. Louis.

The syndicate lost money, notwithstanding the fact that McKinney, Cook, Phillips, and Norwood captured world titles.

Eddie Cook was the first American fighter that Kenny Adams molded into a world title-holder. In 1992, Cook dethroned WBA bantamweight champion Israel Contreras, knocking out the Venezuelan veteran in the fifth round. (He lost the belt in his first defense and retired two years later, leaving the sport with a 19-3 record after suffering a TKO at the hands of future Hall of Famer Marco Antonio Barrera.)

Before Cook won his title, Adams played a role in one of the most startling upsets in boxing history.

While training boxers in Germany, Adams was introduced to Rene Jacquot, a boxer from France. Jacquot’s management inquired if Adams would “polish” him.

“He was a very good student,” recalled Adams, “a hard worker. I trained him in the American style and it enhanced him.”

Nonetheless, no one gave Jacquot a chance when he was matched against Donald Curry in Grenoble, France on Feb. 11, 1989 in a match televised on CBS. Jacquot’s reported record, 24-10, was that of a journeyman.

Curry had started to slip. He had been stopped by Lloyd Honeyghan and Mike McCallum. But a few years prior during his reign as a world welterweight champion, Curry was rated in some quarters as the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. Although the fight was in France, Rene Jacquot was considered nothing more than speed bump for the American invader.

When the smoke cleared, Rene Jacquot was the new WBC 154-pound champion. The decision in his favor was unanimous and eminently fair. (He would lose the belt in his first defense, knocked out in the opening round by John “The Beast” Mugabi. Adams wasn’t around for that one.)

The Ring magazine named Jacquot vs Curry the 1989 Upset of the Year. Eight years later, Adams would be on the right side of yet another fight that would receive this distinction.

While Adams worked with Rene Jacquot for only one fight, he had a long run with Vince Phillips. It was rocky at times. Phillips, in common with his pal Kennedy McKinney, developed a cocaine problem early in his pro career. Las Vegas was no Fort Huachuca. There were temptations galore.

Phillips had a fine pro record (35-3, 24 KOs) when he challenged IBF 140-pound kingpin Kostya Tszyu at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City on May 31, 1997, but he had lost two of his last four fights, had been knocked out in three rounds by Ike Quartey, and was dropping down in weight to meet an undefeated fighter who was considered the best junior welterweight to come down the pike since Aaron Pryor.

“Cool Vince” took the fight out of the judges’ hands, scoring a 10^th-round TKO. It was the 1997 Upset of the Year.

Adams would eventually train more than two dozen world champions including such notables as Diego Corrales, Edwin Valero, Johnny Tapia, and Nonito Donaire. In some cases, these relationships were long-lasting; others were fleeting as some boxers seem to change trainers as often as they change their underwear.

Nowadays, Kenny Adams can be found most afternoons at the DLX Boxing Gym in Las Vegas. The facility is a short walk from the handsome home that Adams shares with his wife of 57 years, the former Claudia Campbell of Clarksville, Tennessee.

There are no stuffed shirts at DLX. Adams is often the subject of good-natured ribbing. “I didn’t know they had a hall of fame for spit-bucket carriers,” joshed the young trainer Manny Savoy, addressing Adams one afternoon when we happened to be there.

In common with most others of his vintage and especially those that led wildly exciting lives, Adams is experiencing some memory loss. Recalling events, the timeline gets jumbled. And physically he has had a number of maladies that have slowed him down. But when Kenny works the pads with a boxer – often a schoolboy as DLX trends younger in the afternoon when school lets out – the years roll off him. By some mysterious alchemy, his reflexes become that of the young man that he once was.

—

Note: The 2024 renewal of the annual Hall of Fame Induction Weekend, a 4-day jamboree, runs June 6-9. The event concludes on Sunday with the Parade of Champions in the Downtown Canastota District followed by the formal induction of this year’s honorees in the showroom of the Turning Stone Casino-Resort in Verona, NY, one exit away on the New York State Thruway.

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Boxing with its ever-changing business landscape tests the commitment of its fans like no other sport. It doesn’t help that so many fighters create more drama outside the ring than inside it. This being the case, it’s always refreshing to learn about the people, places, and associations that are working for the betterment of the sport and the communities that they serve.

K & A Boxing Club at 3017 F Street in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood and its head trainer Timmy Sinese (pictured below with one of his students) is an example of one of these refreshing cases. While it is important to note that, yes, the gym is right across the street from McPhearson Square (unofficially known as “Needle Park”) in one of the worst open air drug neighborhoods in the country, what Sinese and the Philadelphia Pugilistic Association are doing for the youth in that area goes beyond the familiar story of a gym being a haven for at-risk boys and an alternative to a life on the street.

This Saturday (May 1), Sinese and company are putting on their first amateur show at Our Lady of Port Richmond (3233 E. Thompson St.). “All the proceeds from this event are going to kids that are talented but lack the resources to be seen. These kids can fight and without the kids there would be no pros,” states Sinese. A Kensington lifer, he would know about that neighborhood and the talent that it harbors.

Sinese is a veteran of the U.S. Navy where he spent four years learning how to box. Upon his return to the city, he spent years learning how to train fighters at famed gyms like Harrowgate and Rock Ministries. (Harrowgate was the childhood home gym of heavyweight Joey Dawejko and Danny Garcia.) As for his own boxing career, that was cut short when he was stabbed multiple times during a run-in with a motorcycle gang.

After the pandemic he was approached by a friend, John Goodwin, about becoming the head trainer at a new gym that Goodwin was planning on opening. Once the old after-hours club was transformed into the gym bearing the name K & A (an iconic local abbreviation for the Kensington and Allegheny intersection), Sinese went to work on transforming lives. Except one thing has gotten in the way at times.

“It’s hard to water the seeds that we have planted at the gym with the youth,” says Sinise. “We’re trying to help build better citizens at the end of the day. It’s a shame cause we’ve seen friendships and support systems being forged organically between these kids. It’s tough when they can’t afford to see their aspirations of a better life through boxing come true cause of not having money to jump-start [the process]. That’s why Saturday is important.”

One look at the USA Amateur Boxing rankings highlights his point. For the first time in generations, there are hardly any fighters ranked in the top ten of any weight class, both male and female, from the Philadelphia region.

“It’s absolutely a shame that this great fighting city isn’t represented on all levels of the sport anymore, but ultimately, we’re about building better and stronger youth for our community. If these kids can deal with the ring, they can deal with life.”

$35 and $50 tickets will be available at the door for Saturday’s show with the opening bell scheduled for 1:00 PM.

**

King’s Promotions returns this Friday night at Live Casino in South Philadelphia. Bantamweight contender and the always popular Christian Carto (21-1, 14 KO’s) fights for the second time this year in the main event of a seven-fight card. He takes on the durable Jesus Martinez (35-20-1, 16 KOs) in an eight-round bout. Carto, who is trained by Bozy Ennis, looks to stay sharp by staying active as he looks to get into top form before challenging for a world title.

Also on the card is light heavyweight Atif Oberlton. A former amateur standout and Philly native, Oberlton (9-0, 7 KOs) meets Mexico’s Juan Francisco Lopez (8-1, 4 KOs). As I’ve stated before, King’s Promotions always puts on entertaining shows with well-matched fights and this card looks to be no different. Tickets are available through Axs.com and at the door.

**

Matchroom sent out a press release announcing that Jaron “Boots” Ennis will make his return to the ring at the Wells Fargo Center (home to the Sixers and Flyers) on July 13. Ennis (31-0, 28 KOs) will defend his IBF welterweight title against his mandatory challenger Cody Crowley (22-0, 9 KOs) in a bout geared towards accomplishing two things: shaking off any ring rust that might have accumulated after a 12-month layoff while providing proof that Ennis can sell tickets, which will benefit both Matchroom and Ennis in future negotiations.

Ennis signed a multi-fight promotional deal with Matchroom on April 10. Eddie Hearn isn’t wasting any time getting his new young star back into the limelight.

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