The Hauser Report: Boxing Notes and Nuggets

The Hauser Report: Boxing Notes and Nuggets

Larry Goldberg promoted his fifth club fight card at Sony Hall in Times Square on Thursday night. I viewed it through a different lens than I usually do because I had a new responsibility. Azad (a luxury watch manufacturer and one of the event sponsors) had donated a watch that was to be given to one of the fighters. I was tasked with choosing the recipient. I could use whatever criteria I thought was appropriate.

Let’s take the bouts in order.

Bout #1: Raymond Cuadrado (7-0, 3 KOs) vs. Yeuri Andujar (5-5-1, 3 KOs 3 KOs by)

Andujar was winless in four fights dating back to 2019 and had been knocked out in three of those four bouts. He kept throwing punches but didn’t know how to avoid them and fought as though moving his head after punching would be held against him. Blood flowed from his shattered nose from the second round on. But fighting against an opponent with far superior skills, he kept trying to win. There was nobility in Andujar’s effort. He lost all four rounds on each judges’ scorecard. But when it was over, Cuadrado knew he’d been in a fight.

Bout #2: Arnold Gonzalez (11-0, 6 KOs) vs. Alejandro Munera (8-7-4, 7 KOs, 4 KOs by)

Munera fought with an excess of caution until it occurred to him that Gonzalez wasn’t as good as his record. Then he began throwing punches but lost every round.

Bout #3: Mathew Gonzalez (12-0-1, 8 KOs) vs. Terell Bostic (7-1, 1 KO)

This was the one fight on the card that shaped up as competitive. Gonzalez has been carefully matched throughout his career. But not even that had saved him in his most recent outing when he fought to a draw against Dakota Linger in a bout that saw Mathew lose form and fight down to Linger’s level.

It’s hard to find an entertaining match-up for Bostic because he has skills but he’s a runner. Compounding the problem, Mathew followed Terrell around the ring rather than cutting the ring off. Bostic finally started fighting in round seven and won the last two stanzas. But it was too little too late. Terrell lost a 78-74, 77-75, 77-75 verdict in a fight he could have won and had no one to blame for the decision but himself.

Bout #4: Brian Ceballo (14-1, 7 KOs) vs. Mitch Louis-Charles (7-3-2, 4 KOs, 1 KO by)

Ceballo turned pro five years ago after a decorated amateur career and was considered a prospect. But he hasn’t reached the level that was expected of him. If someone suggested in 2018 that, in 2023, Brian would be fighting on a Thursday-night club card against a guy from Canada who had seven wins in twelve outings, the suggestion would have been dismissed as folly. But there it was. Charles was a prohibitive underdog and lost every round.

Bout #5: Kurt Scoby (11-0, 9 KOs) vs. Hank Lundy (31-13, 14 KOs, 4 KOs by)

Scoby is in a stage of his career where his record is being built. Lundy has been reduced to opponent status and had lost five fights in a row since 2020. Scoby looked good. Lundy looked shot. KO 2.

So . . . Who got the Azad watch? First let’s look at the evening as a whole.

Goldberg took a step back from his most recent fight card in that this one had only one match-up that figured to be competitive. And the fights ran true to form. The underdogs lost all twenty rounds in the four fights that shaped up as non-competitive. The A-side fighters sold tickets. But the evening was short in entertainment value.

I don’t like fight cards that are almost exclusively A-side vs. B-side fights. And I didn’t see the point in giving a watch to someone for beating up a hopelessly overmatched opponent. I decided to award the watch to the fighter who, in my view, got the most out of what he had and made the most impressive effort of the evening. I awarded the watch to Yeuri Andujar.

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Let’s tie up some loose ends from past happenings.

I didn’t watch Canelo Alvarez’s May 6 fight against John Ryder live. I followed round-by-round reports on ESPN.com and Boxing Scene while it was in progress and watched the bout on You Tube after it was over.

Round-by-round reports seldom merit comment. But ESPN.com caught my eye with the following entry: “Here come the ring walks! Crowd is going nuts in anticipation. First, the Jalisco national anthem, then the two national anthems, England’s Here Comes The Queen, and Mexico’s.”

I didn’t hear the anthems. But it seems more plausible to me that the crowd was serenaded with God Save the King.

Since May 6 was the day that Charles III was crowned King of England, I thought I’d make that correction.

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It’s only the end of June which is far too early to give out year-end awards. But at the moment, Conor Benn seems a lock to win the “John Lennon Award” for 2023.

Benn mounted an expensive legal assault after testing positive twice for Clomifene and has jumped from one attempted justification of his conduct to another. Eventually, the World Boxing Council accepted his excuse that he was an innocent victim of the “highly-elevated consumption of eggs.” Further filings have built on this contention. But Victor Conte (one of the most knowledgeable people in the world when it comes to the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs in boxing) has shredded Benn’s explanation.

 The John Lennon Award?

Check out the lyrics that Lennon wrote for I Am the Walrus – most notably, “Man, you’ve been a naughty boy . . . I am the egg man.”

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 The World Boxing Council likes to dispense championship belts in conjunction with all manner of events. That practice was on display yet again when Floyd Mayweather engaged in a June 11 exhibition against John Gotti III in Sunset, Florida.

WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman had announced that the sanctioning body would present Mayweather with a special “Juneteenth-themed” championship belt to commemorate the exhibition. The belt had the usual WBC championship-belt motif with images of broken chains, hands, and the word “Juneteenth” added. Speaking to TMZ, Sulaiman declared, “Juneteenth is a national holiday. And Floyd Mayweather is the best representative for success and glory through hard work and dedication. He make[s] life better for all every single day.”

Then things hit a snag. The exhibition was scheduled for eight two-minute rounds. Security at ringside was lax. As the farce (and it was a farce) progressed, referee Kenny Bayless warned both participants multiple times for obscene trash-talking and roughhouse tactics. Finally, in round six, Bayless had seen enough and waved the exhibition off. At that point, Gotti attacked Mayweather with more intensity than he’d shown at any time earlier in the proceedings and an ugly brawl followed. Dozens of partisans stormed the ring and fights spread throughout the arena.

“We were going to present Floyd and other persons [with] the special honorary belt after the exhibition match,” Sulaiman told The Sweet Science. “Unfortunately, everything was cancelled when the riot took place.”

Now let’s get real.

Gotti (who has limited boxing skills) was tabbed for the event because he’s the grandson of former organized crime boss John Gotti. Mayweather’s criminal record includes multiple convictions (and time in jail) for physically abusing women.

No one disputes the fact that Floyd was an exceptionally talented boxer. But Juneteenth celebrates a June 19, 1865, order that proclaimed freedom for slaves in Texas. A serial abuser of woman and a man whose fame is based on the fact that his grandfather was a well-known mob boss are poor symbols for that historic occasion.

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – In the Inner Sanctum: Behind the Scenes at Big Fights – was published by the University of Arkansas Press. 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.