Boxing Odds and Ends: Lovejoy (Don King’s Latest ‘Ghost Fighter’) and More

Remember Christopher Lovejoy? Mr. Lovejoy, who is still kicking around, attracted a bit of buzz in 2020 when promoter Eddie Hearn brought him to London to fight British bruiser Dave Allen. Lovejoy was 19-0 and had knocked out all of his opponents in the opening round; the sort of record that would make one stand up and take notice.

A closer look at his record revealed that all of those knockouts were forged in Tijuana. One had to have been there to see Lovejoy in action as none of his fights were televised or even you-tubed. Noting that there was no footage of him, Australian sports scribe Mike Meehall Wood dubbed Lovejoy a ghost fighter.

Lovejoy’s fight with Dave Allen never did come to fruition. Eddie Hearn thought it prudent to send him home following a late-night phone call from Don King who alleged that Lovejoy was his fighter and threatened to sue the British promoter for tortuous interference. The show, headlined by Oleksandr Usyk’s match with Derek Chisora, went ahead with neither Lovejoy nor Dave Allen getting to display their wares.

Lovejoy resurfaced in May of the following year in Cologne, Germany, where he was matched against Mahmoud Charr. A German citizen of Lebanese extraction, Charr is pretty good, but it was his first fight in three-and-a-years (an impasse fueled partly by a contract dispute with Don King) and it figured that he would need to go a few rounds to shake off the rust.

Christopher Lovejoy wasn’t good enough to give Charr a few rounds. Conspicuously out of shape, he was whacked out in round two. Calling Lovejoy a ghost fighter was diplomatic. His fight with Charr confirmed the suspicion that he was a fraud. (Lovejoy fared better in his most recent assignment. In Cairo, Egypt, he earned a draw in a 6-round fight with a 46-year-old Egyptian who sported a 4-8 record.)

This brings us to Jesus Escalera who fights Jonathan Guidry on Don King’s Nov. 4 extravaganza (King’s word; not ours) at Miami Casino Jai Alai. By all appearances, Escalera, a Puerto Rican currently residing in Riverview, Florida, is the Latin version of Christopher Lovejoy.

In common with Lovejoy circa 2020, Escalera is 19-0 with 19 knockouts. However, all but one of his fights took place in Colombia. The exception was a bout at the Blind Tiger Bar & Grille in Biloxi, Mississippi where Escalera stopped his 48-year-old Brazilian opponent in the opening round. The bout was framed as a heavyweight title fight for something called the Universal Boxing Organization.

Escalera can likely fight more than a little. The nephew of former WBC 130-pound world champion Alfredo Escalera, he comes from a fighting family. And there won’t be any ring rust when he enters the ring against Jonathan Guidry. At age 43 (yes, 43), he’s been a pro for only 12 months! It’s worth noting, however, that his high rate of activity hasn’t curbed his appetite. In his last outing, per boxrec, he carried 271 pounds on his five-foot-eleven frame, up from 230 in his pro debut.

By the way, we’re a fan of Jonathan Guidry. Dubbed the “Swamp King” – he supports his family fishing and crabbing in the bayous of south Louisiana – Guidry always gives an honest effort. His professional record (19-1-2, 11 KOs) is a testament to his perspicacity. However, as a short and short-armed heavyweight, he has some serious limitations. On boxrec’s list of the top 50 active heavyweights, Guidry, 33, clocks in at number 45.

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The first prizefighters, by some accounts, were the booth fighters who traveled the fair circuit in horse-drawn caravans in merry old England. At their pitch on the fairgrounds, they challenged all comers although the man in the audience who threw his hat in the ring (the derivation of this phrase) was often a plant.

Anecdotal histories inform us that every booth fighter was the champion of the district from where he came. Well, not exactly, but he was introduced that way by the spieler who customarily was the same person that managed the fighters in his troupe. Without the word champion attached to his name, a booth fighter had no pull.

Three hundred years later, very little has changed. We’re reminded of this fact whenever we read a Don King press release.

His Nov. 4 show, he informs us, is chock full of title fights. In the main event, Ilunga Makabu takes on Noel Mikaelian for the vacant WBC cruiserweight title. Ilunga, the older bother of heavyweight Martin Bakole, seeks to win back the title he lost in his last outing when he was stopped in the twelfth frame by former super middleweight title-holder Badou Jack.

The title at risk in the Guidry-Escalera fight is presumably Guidry’s WBA Gold title. The press release makes no mention of the UBO title that Escalera won in Mississippi. Instead, he is identified as the FECARBOX heavyweight champion.

Trevor Bryan, who formerly owned a shard of the WBA world heavyweight title, returns to fight Cassius Chaney in a match for something called the WBA Continental North America heavyweight title. And finally, in a late addition to the card, Mike Perez opposes Andrej Pesic in a bout identified as a regional WBC bridgerweight title fight. Perez, born and raised in Cuba, is a longtime resident of Cork, Ireland. The obscure Pesic is from Germany via Serbia. The region associated with this regional belt isn’t specified.

The indefatigable King, still hustling at age 92 but no longer working with a big bankroll, has another “extravaganza” coming up on Dec. 2. Adrien Broner is the main attraction. Broner, says King, is the “People’s Champion” which, as labels go, isn’t a particularly good fit. Broner hasn’t participated in a fan-friendly fight since 2013 when he was badly beaten by Marcos Maidana.

Individual tickets to King’s Nov. 4 and Dec. 2 events are scaled from $50 general admission to $750 ringside. The shows will air on Donking.com, FITE.TV, and ITUBE247.com

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