“He’s Still The Most Handsome Man, And Everything To Me”

Published

10 years ago

December 24, 2013

Magomed Abdusalamov entered the ring the night of November 2nd at the Madison Square Garden Theater with a brand of confidence not unfamiliar to boxing fans in many fighters they’ve seen who have called Russia home. His face impassive, eyes locked in, not darting or downcast, indicating the presence of excessive nerves or self doubt. Body language readers would agree this athlete had the look of one possessing a decent degree of certainty, at least, that he’d perform the violent waltz he’d engaged in 18 times prior as a professional since entering the pro side in 2008 in similar fashion to the way he’d done before, in accumulating an 18-0 mark, with 18 knockouts to his credit.

Exactly when Mago, the son of a hard-ass dad who told him he could be a bandit or boxer, but that he’d off him if he chose the life of crime, the brother to three sisters and a devoted younger brother, the husband to a woman who found herself attracted to the burly physique and softer emotional availability when they were put together by family members who reckoned they’d be a nice fit, developed a blood clot in his brain absorbing punishment at the hands of opponent Mike Perez is not a mystery that can be solved.

If you guessed that at the very least, the satanic door to the traumatic head injury which has placed Mago at Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hospital where he was brought after complaining of feeling unwell, and vomiting, after losing to Perez in a fight shown on HBO occurred early on, your guess wouldn’t be ridiculed by an expert in brain trauma who watched the ten round contest of strength and will at MSG.

Of course, all examinations of these such tragedies are performed within the safe confines of a bubble of hindsight, and the natural instinct to accuse, diagnose, and elevate oneself to a zone of self righteousness which allows a follower of the fight game to sleep with clear conscience. Looking back, it is easy to say that the ref, the cornermen, the New York State Athletic Commission personnel present ringside, the physicians employed by the commission overseeing the contest, that any and maybe all of these folks could have and should have read the signs, and saved Mago from his downfall, his immense heart, and propensity for enduring levels of discomfort in the course of combat which would have forced lesser men to utter No Mas.

Certainly, Dr. Rupendra Swarup, the director of Roosevelt Hospital’s neurosurgical intensive care unit, who assessed Mago and demanded a Catscan, stat, for the boxer after midnight on Nov. 3, would have preferred that someone had chosen differently, so this man wouldn’t have been rendered so stricken, so compromised, that hope is the lifeline his family clutches at, and prayers are what they are asking for in this holiday season.

Mago had been seen by several doctors after losing a unanimous decision to a guy that had a rep as someone who sometimes would coast during bouts, and for that matter, in training camp. Perez didn’t coast during the fight with Mago, or, it appeared, during camp, as his pressure didn’t cease and the volume of his power punching troubled the Russian-born hitter.

But as the main event unfolded, as Gennady Golovkin exerted his power edge on fellow middleweight Curtis Stevens, Mago’s body rebelled against him. His brain signaled that the punches thrown by Perez were not just in a day’s work, were not to be absorbed and mitigated over days and weeks, and maybe dealt with decades down the line, but were a clear and present danger to his life.

Sanity and caution were late to the sad party but finally, Mago was ferried to the hospital. Tests showed a clot on the left side of Mago’s head, and a traumatic subdural hematoma. Fight fans know that condition is too often a fatal one, and in the early morning hours of Nov. 3, it looked like the inappropriately named “sweet science” would claim another victim, another combatant who gravitated to the ring to test his will and saw the sport as a means to economic stability, if not security.

Was it one blow that resulted in a brain hernia, or an accumulation? Impossible to know, but on the operating table, staff had to remove a portion, on the left side, of this 32-year-old man’s skull, to allow the brain to swell. Medical staff wanted to reduce that swelling, performing a decompressive hemicraniectomy to allow the brain to swell, without being squeezed and suffering further damage. The clot was evacuated, the swelling was kept under control, with the administering of hypertonic saline solution being a key element. A cooling catheter also helped keep the swelling manageable. IV medication got pumped into Mago, who lived in Florida after moving from Russia, to decrease his brain activity, to help keep pressure down. Reports in the days after the tragedy said that the boxer was placed into a coma, but, in fact, he was already comatose on the operating table. There was a pronounced lack of hope in some circles, of those that knew the brutal true toll the Perez punches had taken on Mago, in the days following Mago’s time on the operating table. “He was in very bad shape,” Dr. Swarup told me during a visit to see Mago at Roosevelt 46 days after his world jarred off axis. But the man is a fighter. Not was. The same elements that brought him to contender status were and are present now that his first identity is that of patient.

Somewhat miraculously, after docs and close family feared that he’d be unable to bounce back, he did. Not to where he was, but to a place that allows for hope. Twenty days after his near fatal fight, he was woken up. “But this is just the beginning,” Swarup told me. “He’s going to get better, I’m confident. But he will not be the same. He’s going to have neurological deficits.”

After detailing portions of Mago’s medical journey, Swarup, no fan of boxing, told me he’d be fine if the sport didn’t exist. I told him I understood that stance, but asked him to consider a bigger picture. Men like Mago, I told the doctor, aren’t built like you and me. He had a desire to test himself to an extreme degree, to fire walk in a realm that we would regard as absurdly self-destructive. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and resign themselves, in between periodic bursts of self-laceration and subsequent heart-felt resolutions to elevate, to an unexceptional existence. The super-majority will live leaving next to no imprint upon this plane, and in 150 years, a name carved on a stone on a grassy knoll will be their sole marking left behind. But the Mago’s of the world seek a grander legacy, and are willing to risk much to achieve that. Also, I noted to the doctor, when the times comes–and, I dare say, it won’t–that income and opportunity inequality evens out, and persons on the lower rungs are afforded educational and economic footholds afforded to people like me and the doctor, then I will be willing to entertain the push to abolish boxing. But until that time comes, I asked the doctor humbly, please be careful of lobbying for the removal of a path to personal and economic stability and prosperity for a segment of the world population which is in dire need of every single avenue to enrichment. And finally, just know that if boxing is abolished, and the structures, even if they can be wickedly imperfect and sub-sufficient, we have in place are removed, fights will still be held. But they will take place in dark warehouses, they will be run by sociopaths that make today’s promoters look like Mother Theresa’s, and safety measures, like trained referees and mandatory ambulances, will be nothing but vestiges of an era of supposed barbarism, of pre-enlightenment.

The doctor, bless him, listened intently and patiently, and admitted his eyes had been opened, even if he hadn’t been swayed to the opposite aisle. He was still no proponent of pugilism, but at least now he’d heard other sides, and some some merit in the oppositions’ defense. But no, I hadn’t convinced him, however, and, it must be admitted, I hadn’t fully convinced myself. Not when I looked at Mago in that bed. The left side of his skull featured a marked indentation. His body–once 6-3, 230 pounds–had shrunk in the six weeks, and wasn’t any longer the vessel of a warrior, but rather the remainder and reminder of a previous status which would never again be regained.

But in situations such as these, it is counterproductive to focus on what was. The strides the fighter has made in recent weeks are considerable; as I stared at Mago, his eyes were open, and his right pupil would follow an object held in front of him, like, say, pictures of his three children, age 7, 4 and almost one. He is breathing on his own, and he is holding onto his weight OK, taking in liquid food through a feeding tube. “When he came in, he was almost dead,” Swarup reminded me, “and from that point of view he’s come a very long way. But forget about boxing, he will never be the same, period.”

But back to that optimistic outlook, Mago can move the right side of his body some. And because he’s left handed, left-side dominant, the doctor tells me, he has a better chance of regaining the ability to speak.

Boxing runs in the Abdusalamov family, though it looks like the chain has been broken.

“Boxing my life,” the brother who virtually lives in Mago’s hospital room in the neuro unit, Abdusalam, says to me, “now boxing I no like.”

He places his left hand on his big brothers’ brow, to check for a fever. Little brother boxed himself, but, he says, he won’t ever again lace on a pair of gloves. He looks at Mago.

“I am Mago situation, like, no.”

In that halting imperfect but completely comprehensible English, he tells me that back in Russia, he works as a city administrator in the city they lived in, Dagestan. He’s been living here at Roosevelt, but will have to go back to Russia, and re-apply for a visa to come back here, at the end of February. And how is he doing, overall?

“Sad,” he says. “Morning, day, night, here. Sleep, no.”

Mago’s wife Bakanay, staying in Connecticut, in an apartment with the kids, which HBO is paying for, comes all the time, too. The little brother, as he wipes Mago’s face with a tissue smeared with moisturizer, tells me the kids have not seen dad. He makes a motion with his hands, to his eyes, the universal sign for crying. Mago’s mom and dad, he says, are back in Russian having a hard time dealing with the new reality. Mom is having heart problems, and dad too is being treated for stress. Mom is able to get rest after she gets a sedative shot, he says. And, he admits, mom doesn’t even know quite how dire things were, and how compromised Mago is. We communicate more clearly when Abdusalam installs a translation app on his phone.

“Mago very much loves his daughters, he never imagined himself in such a situation,” he types, and shows to me. “He always said boxing is his life.”

The quality of the devotion the brother shows for the elder needs no explanation or translation. During the almost three hours I spent in Mago’s room, Abdusalam showed himself to be an effective a caregiver as a squad of nurses. He wiped Purell on a tissue, and wiped Mago’s cheeks. Every fifteen minutes he checked his brow, for fever, which has been a persistent issue during the Roosevelt stay. He moved Mago’s head, so the big man didn’t get locked into a position for too long. He rubbed oil on Mago’s feet, and then a bit later cracked his toes.

“He like,” the brother told me.

A bit later, he squeezes Mago’s left foot, then right foot, then left, doing a reflexes check. “You’re a good brother,” a nurse says admiringly, stealing my thought. Abdusalamov massages Mago’s back, and then tracks his pupil movement, sweeping his right hand in front of Mago’s face. On this day, there is progress, as now both pupils are tracking movement. The nurse is pleasantly surprised at the development.

“Mago, he was a good brother growing up?” I ask little brother.

“Very good brother,” the younger man answers. “Brother…friend.”

Near the end of my visit, I ask Abdusalam if I can buy him a meal. I appreciate the time he takes with me, the patience he has with me, and admire the resolve and uncommon decency he displays.

“I OK,” he says, turning down the gesture. “Thank you. I cannot leave brother for a moment.”

On Tuesday, Dec. 22, word comes that a bed has opened up at the Helen Hayes Hospital in West Haverstraw, NY, a well-regarded rehab for people in Mago’s position, and that Mago will be moved there, either today or tomorrow. Wife Bakanay is present for the possible transition day. I ask her how she is holding up, how she is feeling.

“Hopeful, optimistic,” she says in Russian, as translated by a nurse. “I’m hoping he will recover and am in good spirits, with lots of hope.”

Bakanay has no love for the sport of boxing, understandable as it is pugilism which has made it so she feels unwilling to come clean with her kids about dad’s condition. “I told them he has a fractured hand, and is in the hospital,” she says.

As a holiday gesture of goodwill, Bakanay says, she’d be grateful if fans of the fighter put in a good word to whatever Almighty they choose to believe in for his recovery. “I want people to pray for him,” she says.

The 27-year-old tells me how she and the boxer came to meet. It turns out they were matched up, as two families thought they’d be a good pairing. They were.

“I like him right away, I was very attracted to him,” she says. “Handsome man. Strong.”

There’s no delicate way to communicate this brutal truth, that a man who had dreams of winning title belts and building a considerable trove of winnings to sustain his family is now unable to walk or talk. The indentation on his skull is jarring to eyes not used to seeing the carnage of traumatic brain injury up close. But Bakanay stares at Mago and doesn’t see what I do: “Even in this condition, he’s still the most handsome man, and everything to me.”

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Michael Woods

Avila Perspective, Chap. 282: Ryan’s Song, Golden Boy in Fresno and More

Published

6 hours ago

April 26, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-282-Ryan's-Song-Golden-Boy-in-Fresno-and-More

Don’t call it an upset.

Days after Ryan Garcia proved the experts wrong, those same experts are re-tooling their evaluation processes.

It’s mind-boggling to me that 95 percent thought Garcia had no chance. Hear me out.

First, Garcia and Haney fought six times as amateurs with each winning three. But this time with no head gear and smaller gloves, Garcia had to have at least a 50/50 chance of winning. He is faster and a more powerful puncher.

Facts.

Haney is a wonderful boxer with smooth, almost artistic movements. But history has taught us power and speed like Garcia’s can’t be discounted. Think way back to legendary fighters like Willie Pep and Sandy Sadler. All that excellent defensive skill could not prevent Sadler from beating Pep in three of their four meetings.

Power has always been an equalizer against boxing skill.

Ben Lira, one of the wisest and most experienced trainers in Southern California, always professed knockout power was the greatest equalizer in a fight. “You can be behind for nine rounds and one punch can change the outcome,” he said.

Another weird theory spreading before the fight was that Garcia would quit in the fight. That was a puzzling one. Getting stopped by a perfect body shot is not quitting. And that punch came from Gervonta “Tank” Davis who can really crack.

So how did Garcia do it?

In the opening round Ryan Garcia timed Devin Haney’s jab and countered with a snapping left hook that rattled and wobbled the super lightweight champion. After that, Garcia forced Haney to find another game plan.

Garcia and trainer Derrick James must have worked hours on that move.

I must confess that I first saw Garcia’s ability many years ago when he was around 11 or 12. So I do have an advantage regarding his talent. A few things I noticed even back then were his speed and power. Also, that others resented his talent but respected him. He was the guy with everything: talent and looks.

And that brings resentment.

Recently I saw him and his crew rapping a song on social media. Now he’s got a song. Next thing you know Hollywood will be calling and he’ll be in the movies. It’s happened before with fighters such as Art Aragon, the first Golden Boy in the 50s. He was dating movie stars and getting involved with starlets all over Hollywood.

Is history repeating itself or is Garcia creating a new era for boxing?

Since 2016 people claimed he was just a social media creation. Now, after his win over Devin Haney a former undisputed lightweight champion and the WBC super lightweight titleholder, the boxer from the high desert area of Victorville has become one of the highest paid fighters in the world.

Ryan Garcia has entered a new dimension.

Golden Boy Season

After several down years the Los Angeles-based company Golden Boy Promotions suddenly is cracking the whip in 2024.

Avila

Vergil Ortiz Jr. (20-0, 20 KOs) returns to the ring and faces Puerto Rico’s Thomas Dulorme (26-6-1, 17 KOs) a welterweight gatekeeper who lost to Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Eimantas Stanionis. They meet as super welterweights in the co-main event at Save Mart Arena in Fresno, Calif. on Saturday, April 27. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card live.

It’s a quick return to action for Ortiz who is still adjusting to the new weight division. His last fight three months ago ended in less than one round in Las Vegas. It was cut short by an antsy referee and left Ortiz wanting more after more than a year of inactivity in the prize ring.

Ortiz has all the weapons.

Also, Northern California’s Jose Carlos Ramirez (28-1, 18 KOs) meets Cuba’s Rances Barthelemy (30-2-1, 15 KOs) in a welterweight affair set for 12 rounds.

It’s difficult to believe that former super lightweight titlist Ramirez has been written off by fans after only one loss. That was several years ago against Scotland’s Josh Taylor. One loss does not mean the end of a career.

“My goal is to get back on top and to get all those belts back. I still feel like I am one of the best 140-pounders in the division,” said Ramirez who lives in nearby Avenal, Calif.

An added major attraction features Marlen Esparza in a unification rematch against Gabriela “La Chucky” Alaniz for the WBA, WBC, WBO flyweight titles. Their first fight was

a controversial win by Esparza that saw one judge give her nine of 10 rounds in a very close fight. Those Texas judges.

In a match that could steal the show, Oscar Duarte (26-2-1, 21 KOs) faces former world champion Jojo Diaz (33-5-1, 15 KOs) in a lightweight match.

Munguia and Canelo

Don’t sleep on this match.

Its current Golden Boy fighter Jaime Munguia facing former Golden Boy fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in a battle between Mexico’s greatest sluggers next week at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on May 4.

“I think Jaime Munguia is going to do something special in the ring,” said Oscar De La Hoya, the CEO for Golden Boy.

Tijuana’s Munguia showed up at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Hollywood where a throng of media from Mexico and the US met him.

Munguia looked confident and happy about his opportunity to fight great Canelo.

“It’s a hard fight,” said Munguia. “Truth is, its big for Mexico and not only for Mexicans but for boxing.”

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 6 p.m. Yoeniz Tellez (7-0) vs Joseph Jackson (19-0).

Sat. DAZN 9:30 a.m. Peter McGrail (8-1) vs Marc Leach (18-3-1); Beatriz Ferreira (4-0) vs Yanina Del Carmen 14-3).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Vergil Ortiz (20-0) vs Thomas Dulorme (26-6-1); Jose Carlos Ramirez (28-1) vs Rances Barthelemy (30-2-1); Marlen Esparza (14-1) vs Gabriela Alaniz (14-1).

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy Promotions

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Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

2 days ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Ramon-Cardenas-Channels-Micky-Ward-and-KOs-Eduardo-Ramirez-on-ProBox

The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to the liver from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round nine. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

4 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Haney-Garcia-Redux-with-the-Focus-on-Harvey-Dock

Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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