Springs Toledo’s “¡Canelo!”

Published

12 years ago

September 16, 2013

The MGM Grand was a madhouse in the hours before Floyd Mayweather’s bout against Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez. By noon, thousands of Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and honorary Mexicans pining for Floyd’s defeat had arrived in well-decorated packs, their red “Canelo” headbands bobbing in every direction. Some wore la Bandera Nacional capes in answer, I suppose, to their idol’s recent appearance in a Superman T-shirt. One enthusiast paraded back and forth between the lobby and the casino under a sombrero, wearing oversized green, white, and red boxing gloves and tooting a vuvuzela in three-blast intervals. He did this for hours and no one paid him any mind. They never do in Vegas. It’s one place on earth where a two-headed transvestite showgirl on stilts could bet on nothing more than a passing glance. But I’m from old, puritanical Boston. I narrowed my eyes at the vuvuzela-blower and saw that his face was painted white.

Canelo’s red hair and freckles are unusual, though not unheard of in México. His maternal surname is “Barragán” which sounds Irish, and it’s a fact that the Irlandés–Mexicanos have been in the country since the early 19^th century. It’s just as likely that his maternal line goes back to northwestern Spain, a region settled by the Celts during the Iron Age, and it should be noted that a significant percentage of México’s population are of European descent. Canelo himself was asked about his ethnicity. “I have no clue” was his answer.

“CANELO! CANELO!” Shouting erupted in the MGM Grand Arena whenever his image appeared on the monitors. Nothing could silence it, not even the Junior welterweight war that would crown “Philly Rican” Danny Garcia the true divisional champion according to the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board. When the “Star-Spangled Banner” was sung before the main event, the crowd was reverent until the balladeer capped off his performance with an unwise shout-out (“Money Team! Let’s go!”) and got jeered right out of the joint.

The hearts of 16,746 were touched by a beautiful rendition of “México Lindo Y Querido” during Canelo’s ring walk. Carlos Aguirra, a sports writer forZeta, made sure that my heart was touched too when he translated the refrain. “ Lovely, beloved México. If I die away from you, tell them I’m asleep and bring me back here.” It was the preferred entrance song of Julio César Chávez, the most celebrated Mexican champion in history.

When Jimmy Lennon Jr. introduced Canelo, I thought I saw the roof shudder like the lid of a steam pot. Chávez was there. He was cheering too.

The fight itself was anti-climactic. Despite the adoration, undefeated record, physical advantages, and the surprising poise exhibited by the twenty-three-year-old Canelo, he never had a chance.

Esquina asked me for a prediction weeks ago. I said that their national hero has “serious stamina issues”; that he is a stop-and-go fighter with a tendency to fade around the sixth or seventh round. This would prove to be a drag on any strategy his corner came up with. Floyd, I said, knew this. He would fight the stronger man on wheels and from the outside to “frustrate and wear him out” on the way to a “unanimous decision or even a late stoppage.”

As it was, the first thing Canelo did when he approached Mayweather was downright un-Mexican —he took a step backward. It was a signal that he would box and conserve his energy; that he would box to conservehis energy. He lost at that moment. It’s in the handbook: when a bull decides to out-matador a matador, he fails. He just doesn’t look right in fancy duds. Knowledgeable fans murmured, but still their flag was vigorously waved, vuvuzelas were vigorously tooted, and the familiar roars of “Canelo!” and “México!” still raised the roof. Mid-way through the first round, they began chanting “Si se puede! Si se puede!” I asked Aguirra about it. He said it means “yes we can” and that it has been a staple of Mexican sports culture since Guadalupe won the 1997 Little League World Series. I thought it signaled desperation setting in early, as if someone plonked a ball and chain on winged hope.

Canelo’s own ball and chain, his stamina problems, were dragging down his performance by the sixth round, right on schedule. In the seventh, Floyd flinched at Canelo and Canelo was looking more and more like the schoolyard victim he once was. It wasn’t a contest anymore. It was a clinic. Floyd jabbed to elicit an expected reaction, then countered a full second before anyone else could. Canelo’s shots breezed past a rolling, pivoting, playful Floyd.

The ear-busting chants had all but ended by the eighth round. Still, a mother or a dedicated little group would stand up every so often and shout “Canelo! Canelo!” while their neighbors sagged in their seats and lowered their flags.

Before the final round, some gathered up their things and silently headed for the exits.

There would be no miracle. The last thing the young hero did in the fight was throw a one-two at a ring general who laughs at simple tactics.

In defeating the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board’s number-one Junior middleweight contender, Floyd (who was ranked number two) assumed a throne eight-years vacant. He was a gracious winner. “I take my hat off to Mexico,” he said during the post-fight interview. “Mexico has produced some great champions throughout the years.” There have been no less than forty of them since 1942, and they keep right on rumbling in the right direction. Canelo’s black eye told them he has work to do before he can become a true champion himself. “We didn’t have answers,” he said to his countrymen, now streaming away. “I didn’t want to lose. It hurts.”

A drunk teetered up the ramp toward section 221 bellowing “Cah-nel-O! Cah-nel-O!” with arms raised in mock victory. He was grinning stupidly as the crowd filed passed him. A few women looked askew; a few men glared. He looked back at them with eyes like egg whites and went at it again—“Cah-nel-O! Cah-nel-O!” I stepped off to one side expecting a thirteenth round of sorts. Luckily for him, everyone’s passion was spent. “Bah!” someone said over a shoulder. “I’m a Chicano from East L.A.!”

A few minutes later, two young men turned the corner with eyes on the floor. One of them reached up and flicked off his red headband. His friend looked over and did the same.

Another fan wearing the flag of México around his shoulders waxed defiant. “He looks Irish,” he said to no one in particular. Then he pulled the beloved flag close to his heart, and walked on.

Saúl Álvarez’s answer about his ethnicity recorded by MaxBoxing’s Jason Gonzalez (“Oh, the Possibilities”). Special thanks to Carlos Aguirra, Laura Alvarado, Michael Woods, and Dino da Vinci.

Springs Toledo can be contacted at scalinatella@hotmail.com .

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Springs Toledo

TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

2 days ago

April 16, 2025

TSS Press

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The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.

Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.

Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11^th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)

Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.

The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).

Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”

A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.

Other winners:

Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon

Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney

Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire

Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix

The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.

The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.

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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

Published

3 days ago

April 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.

He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.

Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.

“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.

“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)

Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.

During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”

He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.

He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.

On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.

Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.

If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.

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Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City

Published

5 days ago

April 12, 2025

David A. Avila

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In the showdown between undefeated welterweight champions Jaron “Boots Ennis walked away with the victory by technical knockout over Eamantis Stanionis and the WBA and IBF titles on Saturday.

No doubt. Ennis was the superior fighter.

“He’s a great fighter. He’s a good guy,” said Ennis.

Philadelphia’s Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) faced Lithuania’s Stanionis (15-1, 10 KOs) at demonstrated an overpowering southpaw and orthodox attack in front of a sold-out crowd at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

It might have been confusing but whether he was in a southpaw stance or not Ennis busted the body with power shots and jabbed away in a withering pace in the first two rounds.

Stanionis looked surprised when his counter shots seemed impotent.

In the third round the Lithuanian fighter who trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, began using a rocket jab to gain some semblance of control. Then he launched lead rights to the jaw of Ennis. Though Stanionis connected solidly, the Philly fighter was still standing and seemingly unfazed by the blows.

That was a bad sign for Stanionis.

Ennis returned to his lightning jabs and blows to the body and Stanionis continued his marauding style like a Sherman Tank looking to eventually run over his foe. He just couldn’t muster enough firepower.

In the fifth round Stanionis opened up with a powerful body attack and seemed to have Ennis in retreat. But the Philadelphia fighter opened up with a speedy combination that ended with blood dripping from the nose of Stanionis.

It was not looking optimistic for the Lithuanian fighter who had never lost.

Stanionis opened up the sixth round with a three-punch combination and Ennis met him with a combination of his own. Stanionis was suddenly in retreat and Ennis chased him like a leopard pouncing on prey. A lightning five-punch combination that included four consecutive uppercuts delivered Stanionis to the floor for the count. He got up and survived the rest of the round.

After returning shakily to his corner, the trainer whispered to him and then told the referee that they had surrendered.

Ennis jumped in happiness and now holds the WBA and IBF welterweight titles.

“I felt like I was getting in my groove. I had a dream I got a stoppage just like this,” said Ennis.

Stanionis looked like he could continue, but perhaps it was a wise move by his trainer. The Lithuanian fighter’s wife is expecting their first child at any moment.

Meanwhile, Ennis finally proved the expectations of greatness by experts. It was a thorough display of superiority over a very good champion.

“The biggest part was being myself and having a live body in front of me,” said Ennis. “I’m just getting started.”

Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was jubilant over the performance of the Philadelphia fighter.

“What a wonderful humble man. This is one of the finest fighters today. By far the best fighter in the division,” said Hearn. “You are witnessing true greatness.”

Other Bouts

Former featherweight world champion Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) showed that moving up in weight would not be a problem even against the rugged and taller Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs) in winning by a convincing unanimous decision.

The quicksilver southpaw Ford ravaged Mattice in the first round then basically cruised the remaining nine rounds like a jackhammer set on automatic. Four-punch combinations pummeled Mattice but never put him down.

“He was a smart veteran. He could take a hit,” said Ford.

Still, there was no doubt on who won the super featherweight contest. After 10 rounds all three judges gave Ford every round and scored it 100-90 for the New Jersey fighter who formerly held the WBA featherweight title which was wrested from him by Nick Ball.

Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made good on a promise to his departed daughter by knocking out Argentina’s Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in their welterweight battle.

Giyasov floored Ocampo in the first round with an overhand right but the Argentine fighter was able to recover and fight on for several more rounds.

In the fourth frame, Giyasov launched a lead right to the liver and collapsed Ocampo with the body shot for the count of 10 at 1:57 of the fourth round.

“I had a very hard camp because I lost my daughter,” Giyasov explained. “I promised I would be world champion.”

In his second pro fight Omari Jones (2-0) needed only seconds to disable William Jackson (13-6-2) with a counter right to the body for a knockout win. The former Olympic medalist was looking for rounds but reacted to his opponent’s actions.

“He was a veteran he came out strong,” said Jones who won a bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “But I just stayed tight and I looked for the shot and I landed it.”

After a feint, Jackson attacked and was countered by a right to the rib cage and down he went for the count at 1:40 of the first round in the welterweight contest.

Photo credit: Matchroom

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