Boxing Odds and Ends: Heavyweights Collide at Lake Tahoe and More

“Those Saudis sure love their heavyweights,” Bob Arum remarked at an informal press confab several weeks ago. By Saudis, Arum didn’t mean the general population, but the fat-cat poobahs who control the purse strings over there. Indeed, five heavyweight fights preceded last Saturday’s crossover fight between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Bob Arum likes heavyweights too. His company, Top Rank, has their hooks in a bevy of up-and comers including such prized prospects as Jared Anderson, Bakhodir Jalolov, and Richard Torrez Jr.

A heavyweight match is the featured attraction on Top Rank’s card this Saturday in northern Nevada. Efe Ajagba (18-1, 13 KOs) opposes Joseph Goodall (10-1-1, 9 KOs). They met nine years ago at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland. Goodall, from Brisbane, Australia, won a unanimous decision.

Ajagba went on to represent Nigeria in the 2016 Rio Olympics and turned pro in the United States with high expectations. He has won three straight since suffering his lone defeat at the hands of Frank Sanchez who simply out-boxed him. In the aftermath of that fight, Ajagba had surgery on both elbows.

Goodall, perhaps an inch shorter than the six-foot-six Ajagba, made his U.S. debut in a fight buried on the undercard of a TBC promotion at the Minneapolis Armory. He dismissed his B-side opponent in the opening round.

No one was paying attention, but serious fight fans stood up and took notice when he blasted out Stephen Shaw this past July on a Top Rank card in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Shaw, who was 18-1 heading in, had never been knocked down. Goodall knocked him down twice before the match was halted late in the sixth round.

An intriguing undercard fight on the ESPN+ show finds six-foot-nine Antonio Mireles (8-0, 7 KOs) touching gloves with six-foot-seven Skylar Lacy (7-0, 5 KOs) in a 6-rounder.

Mireles, from Des Moines, Iowa, won the 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials in the super heavyweight class, upending top seed Jeremiah Milton, but a complicated point system put in place as an upshot of the Covid pandemic knocked him out of the Tokyo Games. The assignment went to Richard Torrez Jr who won a silver medal.

Skylar Lacy, an all-state football player in Indiana, was a starting offensive lineman at the University of Louisville where he blocked for future Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson. He turned pro after losing a split decision to future U.S. Olympian Joshua Edwards.

Mireles is the “A” side here and will be favored in the 4/1 range, but this is a winnable fight for Lacy. Like many towering specimens in boxing history, Mireles has difficulty getting torque on his punches.

Florida heavyweight Brandon Moore, a new Top Rank signee, also appears on the undercard. Lightweights Raymond Muratalla (18-0, 15 KOs) and Diego Torres (18-0, 17 KOs) collide in the co-feature. This will be the first boxing show at the Tahoe Blue Event Center which sits on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. Built to house an as-yet-un-named expansion team in an “AA” professional hockey league, the spanking new 4,200-seat facility is owned by Jacksonville businessman David Hodges and former Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow.

Korakuen Hall

There was a big upset this week at Tokyo’s venerable Korakuen Hall. In a bout for a regional WBO super bantamweight title, former IBF 122-pound title-holder TJ Doheny stopped Japhathlee Llamido in the opening round. Llamido, 23, was stepping up in class, but was yet a 5/1 favorite over a seemingly shopworn Doheny.

Heading in, Llamido was undefeated (11-0, 4 KOs). None of his fights had gone past 8 rounds and that was the big question; whether his punch-rate would drop if the bout went long.

That proved to be a moot question.

Doheny

Doheny (25-4, 19 KOs) stopped him in the opening stanza, knocking him down hard with a sweeping left hook when the bout wasn’t yet quite two minutes old, and then swarming all over him when he arose on unsteady legs, forcing the referee to waive it off.

Both of these campaigners have interesting back stories.

Llamido, born into a Filipino-American community in Long Beach, California, moved to Japan in September of 2019 to help Naoya Inoue prepare for his first meeting with Nonito Donaire and took up residence there in Yokohama. Doheny had a deep amateur background in his native Ireland before settling in Australia at age 21.

When inside Korakuen Hall, the world’s busiest venue for combat sports, TJ Doheny has proven to be quite the spoiler. He won his world title here, upsetting Ryosuke Iwasa. More recently, he resurrected his floundering career inside this building with a fourth-round stoppage of 14-1-1 Kazuki Nakajima.

Doheny turns 37 on Thursday of this week. He gave himself a very nice birthday present.

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