Naoya Inoue's Abnormal Brain Functioning

I've been out of the boxing loop for personal reasons but now I've returned.  It would be wrong to say I'm starting from zero for I've always kept one eye open regardless. 

One of the areas where I've been remiss, however, is in the skyrocketing career of Naoya Inoue.  The "monster" shot right to the top of the boxing world with an impressive KO record and no losses.  I've been watching old footage of his fights and can see why his opponents seem mesmerized by both his speed and his power. 

This talent of Inoue's was no more apparent than in his recent fight with Alan Picasso.  There's no dispute of the outcome, of course. I generously have Picasso one round and Inoue all the rest.  Looking at this from a far perspective, an outside observer might think that Picasso didn't belong in the ring with Inoue. 

That would be a false conclusion. I was impressed with Picasso's speed even as he was so often beaten to the punch by Inoue. Picasso fought a great fight, avoided getting KOd   often managing to land good punches for which Inoue was unfortunately available.  

 Which leads to the point of this writing, which is my theory that there's something abnormal in Inoue's brain that must be studied by sports scientists.  I might have understood this long ago had I not gone AWOL from this blog and from keeping up with the latest boxing news as it occurred.

Let me explain Inoue's abnormality, a phenomenon which I noticed from personal experience when I was young enough to engage in amateur boxing myself.  Don't think for a moment I even belong in the same sentence as even a journeyman professional fighter.  What I'm writing about is just something I've observed during a literally miraculous amateur fight I had with another amateur.  The phenomenon happened to me for an unfortunately short period during which I stunned my opponent. Unfortunately, this 'gift of the gods' so to speak, lasted for less than a minute and my normal plodding state returned. 

Let me state it plain. I think Inoue's brain has some sort of time-space dysfunction which, when it kicks in, behaves just as a video or film lens captures slow motion events.  This is no to say the "monster" has slow-mo turned on at all times. From what I observed, it seems to kick in at the most high-intensity action point of his fights.  In other words, he's normally fast throughout, but then, if the opponent challenges him as Picasso was capable of intermittently doing, Inouse's brain turns on its slow-motion aberration which allows him to see his opponent's fists flying as slowly as a dandelion seed blowing in the wind.  

How else could he turn from a right-handed up-jab to an overhand right  (same hand) and then an uppercut? In pointing this out, I am purposely omitting anything he may have been doing at the same time with his left hand (usually a hook to the liver).  I don't see how any of that could be done without Inoue's brain turning his perceptions into that of a slow-motion video camera. 

So that's my personal theory. At some point other persons may see and understand and come to the same conclusion. Just remember, though. You heard it first right here from me.

Post-Mortem: Anthony Joshua Loses to Oleksandr Usyk

 

They have arrived.  Oleksandr Usyk, center;  trainer and promoter l & r

So the post-mortem for the Joshua – Usyk fight is well underway.  There is a rematch clause built into the contract.  You’d think that was pretty clear and intended.  However many people, pundits and fight fans alike,  are saying it would be a mistake for Anthony Joshua to take on Usyk a second time without some interim opponent.  That strikes me as absolutely crazy. 

Well there are people and there are people. I’m not one of the people.  The people who count are Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing and AJ himself.  AJ already voiced in a post-fight press conference where he stands. He’s ready to go again as soon as possible.  Eddie Hearn says that could happen early 2022, February or March.   

 Appearing on Ak and Barak (DAZN), the promoter told the hosts his guy could beat Usyk the second time around.  Eddie knows that AJ made mistakes.  AJ knows he made mistakes.  The thousands of people who watched the fight know AJ made mistakes. 

He didn’t exactly say it but Eddie Hearn believes that AJ has the skills to beat Usyk in a second fight if it were held tomorrow.  A figurative tomorrow. Anthony Joshua feels the same way but what would happen tomorrow that didn’t happen on Saturday night?

I don’t know the crew who trained AJ for this fight but someone gave him the wrong cues. It would have been better for him to listen to Roy Jones before the fight.  Jones said outright that if AJ didn’t get on top of Usyk in the early rounds that he’d have a rough night and could lose.

 That turned out to be prophetic as Joshua seemed to be more worried about the distance than in keeping the Ukrainian away from him. Usyk got within range early and often and battered Joshua.  Joshua endured it and kept on ticking but his punches were entirely predictable while Usyk punched from every angle but above our heads. 

I’d thought European fighters had gotten out of the old-school straight up style of boxing but it looked as if AJ reverted.  This was in stark contrast to Usyk who made himself hard to hit with continuous head movement and footwork.  Usyk is a madman but a smart, relentless, and cunning madman.   The work he put in took its toll on Joshua who had few moments for his thousands of fans to admire.

Let me declare my bias.   I was for AJ all the way.  I   think he does have the tools to win a second time around if he can find and use them.    I wouldn’t pick him to win, however, unless he has a coaching or at least a style change. The way AJ fought only works if your opponent stands in front of you beside a yard sign showing you where to hit.

 I think the plan was for Joshua to stand in there during the early rounds, wait for Usyk to die down, and then  punch hard. Sure a hard right hand was inevitable, except it wasn't. 

  Didn’t his trainers get the memo?  Or maybe AJ ignored them which I think is less a possibility.  As George Foreman said, it seemed that AJ has yet to discover who he really is as a fighter.  Was he too rich and no longer hungry? I don't think it was that. 

 AJ surely has enough punch  n but he didn’t land it or landed it rarely. Meanwhile Usyk did exactly what southpaws do best, positioning themselves outside the right handed fighters left foot so that they can rocket straight lefts right down the pipe.  Which happened all night long.

Is Boxer King Ryan Garcia a Weak Spot in the Weight Class?

  

Seems as if everyone wants to fight Ryan Garcia.  Okay, first it's the money.  Ryan Garcia is one of the most recognizable figures in sports with millions of followers on the social networks.  but there may be other reasons too. 

Do other top contestants in the weight class see him as easy pickings? Overly hyped? Garcia has his skills, no doubt -- good timing, a sweeping left hook, and a talent for putting people into seats (or on TV screens as the case may be). 

 The latest development stems from Jo Jo Diaz Jr. Saturday night win over a game Xavier Fortuna. This was a surprise as Fortuna went in as the favorite.  While I favored Diaz myself (largely because I was more familiar with him than with Fortuna), I thought the scoring should have been closer than what the actual three judges scored. They gave Diaz a handy win.  

In the post-fight interview, Diaz mentioned he'd like a fight with Ryan Garcia if it could be arranged.  This news ticked off Devin Haney and touched off a bit of a Twitter bicker-war between the Haney and Diaz.  Haney scoffed at the implication he could be passed over and points out he's the mandatory in the division. 

I was impressed with Fortuna after seeing his pre-fight interview in which he praised Diaz for stepping up in weight to fight him. It was a courageous move and turns out to be the right one for Diaz' career.

As for Fortuna, he acquitted himself well and, as I said previously, I thought the scores were closer than the ones that ruled.  It was suggested by several commentators that Fortuna was having trouble getting big fights.  Oscar De LaHoya said the same in the post fight ring interviews.  

He's a good fighter. If Diaz had not been so inspired by his new baby boy and fresh outlook, the result might have been different.

Boxing: Ryan Garcia insists he wants the fight with Tank Davis. Does he really?

There’s all this fan desire for a Tank Davis v. Ryan Garcia fight but it’s not likely to happen in year 2021.  Considering the vicissitudes of boxing, you have to consider the possibility that it may never happen. 

 Garcia did fight once in January and, in spite of getting dumped for the first time in his career, he took care of Luke Campbell with a hurting body shot to advance his record to 21-0. 

In April  2021, Golden Boy announced that their star would be fighting Javier Fortuna in July of this year, but then they pulled out of the fight citing Garcia’s bouts of anxiety and depression. 

 I’m not denying that Ryan Garcia hasn’t reached mega-star level as a public personality. He’s handsome, entertaining,  and humongously popular within the youngish social media circles —  but I point out that he just hasn’t attained it through boxing alone as have the true legends of the sport. 

The mental health issues are acknowledged all over Garcia’s social media postings so I’m not giving away any delicate secrets here.  It stands to reason that Garcia, a talented boxer  , would have tremendous anxieties in dealing with his vast cross-over popularity and his level of success in the ring.  He’s an ascendant competitor, brought along sensibly by his promotion team, and the big question that everyone keeps asking is whether he can handle fighting dangerous top-level fighters like Tank Davis.  That is still an open question in some circles. 

Asked about the prospect of a Davis v. Garcia fight, Leonard Ellerbe went public with a Twitter post (see above) indicating he tried to make that fight with Golden Boy in March 2021 and was told “they were exploring other options” and were going to make a Ryan Garcia fight with someone other than Tank Davis.

Was this ducking or smart management?  Fight fans can be awfully mean people, including yours truly, but it’s very easy to see it’s difficult for Ryan Garcia (or any person) to keep his marbles together in the money and fame environment grown up around him.  Boxing isn’t Hollywood and it would cease to be if it becomes that way. 

  The fact is   that Ryan Garcia can’t have it both ways.  He can’t go around saying he desperately wants a fight with Tank Davis (again, see above)  and say, at the same time, that his management won’t let him take that fight out of concern for his fragile mental condition. 

Am I reading too much between the lines of Garcia’s response to Ellerbe’s post?  I don’t think so, and I’m reminded of an old Pennsylvania prison challenge where one con tries to dominate the other by confronting him with this:

          “Do you want to fight, fuck, or climb a tree?”

They ain’t no trees in a boxing ring incidentally.

 S

Danny Jacobs v Gabriel Rosado : The Bad Blood is Real

Here it is November.  I was about to kick my DAZN to the curb for lack of evidence when suddenly my boxing radar started showing some blips.  Tonight  Brooklyn’s Danny Jacobs will meet Philadelphia’s Gabriel Rosado at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood Florida.  

I will be happy if the fight proves to be even half as entertaining as their press conference. Trash talk is routine these days   but in some instances the disrespect and dislike are real.  This is real.  

  For Danny Jacobs, it’s a gateway fight.   Aside from his loss to Pirog, Jacobs lost close fights with Canelo and with GGG.  A solid win over Rosado would put him back where he needs to be. 

 There’s no  doubt Jacobs is at the top level in spite of the three losses and he feels certain he could win against GGG and/or Canelo if given another chance. He is perhaps less sure of Canelo.

  This is a matchup that has some people denigrating the fight because conventional thinking is that the two fighters are not on the same level.  Jacobs is the heavy favorite mainly because Rosado has twelve losses to his record. 

Danny Jacobs has three, one of them to a 12-0  but largely unknown Russian fighter named Dmitry Pirog who hasn’t been seen in the ring for almost ten years.   Prelims start at 8 at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood Florida. 

There’s some interesting action on the undercard too.  One that I’m particularly  interest is rather off-the-grid but  I’m marching to a different drum anyway.  There’s a 33 year old named Something Majidov.  While there seems to be a sizable cohort of Kazak  fighters (GGG, being the most well known) I don’t think we’ve seen an Azeri heavyweight contender. 

Majidov is interesting, not only because he once beat Anthony Joshua to a world amateur title, but also because he has a big punch.  His pro resume is light, consisting only of two previous bouts, but his style is far from amateurish.    

Film at 11 - more to follow . . .  

Congrats to Teofimo Lopez, Bob Arum, and ESPN

 By now you've heard there's a new sheriff in the 135 pound boxing rankings and his name is Teofimo Lopez.  Lots of people outside boxing won't recognize the name but that's about to change as he's taken over the division and is looking to step up to a higher weight  where he says he's more comfortable. Many  viewers mentioned he did look bigger than Lomachenko -- true, but not so much.  

Just as impressive as Lopez' domination of the fight was the viewer count approached three million.  This occurs even while NFL game viewers has declined by 8 or 10 percent, depending on whose numbers you use.

Equally impressive was Bob Arum's announcement before the fight that the broadcast on ESPN would be absolutely free.  This was both a smart and generous move on Arum's part.  

It was also good for the sport.  Lopez was the 4 to 1 underdog and it seemed for a while that, amongst all my boxing buddies, that only me and Floyd Mayweather Jr. picked Lopez to win.  Okay, I'm exaggerating because there was Lopez' dad too.  And his mom?

I wasn't entirely solid in my pick -- I didn't think it would go the distance. I did however pick Lopez because I'd watched him before and noticed a little known fact.  Lopez is known as a killer puncher having knocked out nearly all of his opponents but I noticed he could box too.  Even more do I appreciate that he's the type of throwback guy who will fight anyone among the new crop of New Generation Boxers.  

I don't want to throw shade on Sergei Lomachenko -- he's a great boxer with an interesting arsenal.  None of it was working in the Lopez fight  as many observers thought he was too idle in the early going and didn't get started until it was too late and his only chance would be for a knockout.  

Both fighters showed good chins so that didn't become an issue. However, it must be recognized that this was a big upset.  

I want to say also that my pick of Lopez wasn't simply because I liked him; it was also because Loma had become something of a sacred cow. Even more galling to me was that celebrity sportswriters like Stephen Smith and Max Kellerman were always expounding about how Loma was "special."  Special, special, special, I heard it a hundred times. 

I don't like sacred cows.  This is boxing where no one is special  and the king is always dead.  Who was Buster Douglas?  Who was Cassius Clay in the first Sonny Liston fight? 

Congrats to Teofimo Lopez and Bob Arum. It's interesting to note that there was no rematch clause in the contract signed. I'm good with that.  The reason for no rematch was that Loma's team was completely certain their guy would win and so there was no reason to put it in the contract.  They didn't even expect it to be close.

Tyson Fury v. Deontay Wilder II (the nervous breakdown)

Tyson Fury v. Deontay Wilder II (the nervous breakdown)

A low-level Twitter war broke out last night as I looked through opinion regarding the Feb. 22 rematch.  There’s plenty of opinion, people seeming to look for new angles, even when there are only two worth considering.

You either believe in “The Bomb” or you believe in Tyson Fury’s boxing ability.  I didn’t even realize Fury had boxing ability until I saw Tyson-Fury I.  I was both surprised and impressed as Fury hadn’t shown me much of boxing in previous fights.   That’s not to say Fury is a brilliant boxer, just a competent   one, at least until the later rounds when he did an unexpected face plant beneath Wilder’s wild bombs. 

Just below is a sampling of people who piled on to my opinion of a Wilder KO  even after I’d admitted Fury did a superior job in the first fight.  “Superior” meaning superior to Wilder who kept waiting for the big punch which finally came in the late rounds.  I keep thinking about how wonderful it would be if Wilder had both boxing and bomb squad gifts.

So TonesLopez agrees with me even if most people do not.  I’d hazard a guess that this “most people” pile-on comes from British fans.  This is not to disparage their loyalty nor their beliefs.  Tyson Fury has won me over just as much for his entertainment and personality values as for his boxing skill.  Compared to boxing’s greatest boxers, Fury’s combinations are highly predictable.  He does everything but post neon signs announcing his next onslaught of punches.  It is during one such announcement that he is likely to get tagged with a Wilder head-seeking missile. 

Why did Fury go down from those punches from a smaller man?  I’ll ask also, on behalf of Fury’s fans, how he managed to get up.  That was something that did impress me although it seemed to me he got the advantage of a Dempsey Long Count.  Still, he did get up, whether it be eleven seconds or within ten, as the referee ruled. I’m not a timekeeper so I wouldn’t go further than stating my own impression.

I’d imagine you’ve already heard enough of my opinion, especially since it is the same opinion expressed by hundreds of other people.  Deontay Wilder will knock Tyson Fury out in the rematch, boxing skills notwithstanding.  Unless.. . . . . (drum roll and strike up the band) Tyson Fury does what he says he’d do in a recent pre-fight television interview — get to Wilder in the early rounds (round 2, he said) and knock him out.  

I can’t see that happening.   Guys like Deontay Wilder will go after you even when they’re dead.  I’ve seen it before.  Right now I’m thinking of the late Diego Corrales — beaten every which way, death and resurrection, going on to the end a winner.  So even if Fury can manage to overwhelm Wilder with an unending and furious flurry of punches in the early rounds, Wilder will rise from the crypt and punish the giant with Thor’s hammer blows.  Aren’t you nervous about that?

Does Boxing Need a Blowout Rule?

 This wouldn’t be so bad if they just gave the coach a heads up and said, hey, why not put some of the second stringers in there.  But somebody felt they had to punish this coach for doing what everyone wants to do -  win.  But apparently, there are those special people who think that winning should  be secondary to a primary goal of protecting kids from hurt feelings.

It’s absolutely insane that a  Long Island high school football coach was suspended for running up the score on his team’s tough rival.  It’s not only insane, it’s stupid.  Don’t you think that world champion soccer teams have hurt feelings when they’ve lost by only one point?  This is something that happens frequently.  Do you suppose their feelings would be less bruised if they lost by three points?

  I would go so far as to say this Texas football win suspension does a great deal of harm.    It’s even rather elitist if you ask me.  It’s a   a sports contest.   There will be a winner and a loser. The loser doesn’t ever feel as good as the winner.  Ask your kid: “How did the game go?”  You will never hear him say: “Great!  We almost won!”  And then you’d have to think it was maybe some high school sports commission foisting that illusion upon the kids because he told the winning coach to lay down on points. 

The whole spirit of sports is that you  rise up from your failures and do better next time.  You build and rebuild.  You take the blows and keep coming.  It’s not the scoreboard but your spirit that stays alive like 

the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae.  They were big losers but we remember them in eternity, don’t we? 

And then as a final thought, I couldn’t help but think how it would be if a blowout rule were applied to boxing.  Your guy is winning handily so, in accordance with the blowout rule, you tell him to pull his punches, bounce around the ring a bit, don’t touch the other guy.  And then suddenly the losing fighter launches a lucky big right hand and knocks your guy lights out. 

Whose feelings are saved then? The ‘winner’ lives with self-delusion, not knowing that his victory was fixed.  The ‘loser’ is forever pissed off, bitter, and betrayed in a fight in which he/she was the superior contestant.

Listen, the boxing world is full of fighters with losses on their records but who come roaring back and win titles.  Losing is part of character building.  Why aren’t people satisfied to say “yeah well, my kids lost but they played with a lot of heart.”  A lot of heart.  You hear that kind of respect often for the loser in a boxing match. 

What fools are those who think they are helping kids by denying them the chance to rise above their weaknesses?

Prograis v. Taylor — The super-lightweights didn't disappoint.

It's over.  If the decision had gone the other way I wouldn't have argued for a minute.  It lived up to its billing and in the end there was respect for both fighters.  Prograis was classy and didn't whine about the decision.  Perhaps he saw that the close margin had upped his stock in the sport.

It was strange to watch two southpaws, heads and feet and fists always in the way.  Rougerou got out early and, after the feeling out rounds, I thought he outworked Taylor.  What changed the momentum was that Taylor began to box a little more rather than stand nose to nose trading punches with the better body.  Both fighters displayed good chins, eating shots that would have made lesser men quit.

I wasn't keeping score, I was going with the flow of the fight — damage done, whose body would break down soonest.  Prograis seemed like a man of metal as he took many right hooks to the body and I think he was the strongest of the two at the end, at the twelfth round.    In the middle rounds, he took a bloody battering as Taylor had him measured.   It was hardly a cakewalk for Taylor who looked more beat up at the end in spite of getting the decision.

Did I mention one of the judges was probably a close relative?  Well no, not exactly, but you'd think so considering that he had Taylor so far ahead in his outsized scoring.  Another judge had Taylor by one point.  The third judge had it a draw.  

Andy Ruiz Jr. Floors Anthony Joshua Four Times on Path to Victory.

                               Historical Upset Turns Boxing World Upside-Down

They trained Anthony Joshua’s body but they didn’t train his mind. So it was that he turned up in Madison Square Garden in a half-baked frame of mind that allowed a much smaller last minute stand-in long shot to put him on the canvas four times.  There were perhaps a few of us  that both welcomed that outcome and fewer still predicted it as   likely.

A day before the fight I was discussing with my longtime friend David Lamkin how so many millions of casual fight fans were giving Ruiz no chance.  That was ridiculous in itself even for the novitiates grown addicted to the over-hyped  tempo of Mixed Martial Arts where all it takes is a tattoo on some taut muscle bulk to impress the frat boys.

Hadn’t any of these people seen a fat boy fight?  The first time I saw Andy  Ruiz Jr. he didn’t remind me at all of Butterbean (as many of the fascinati are inclined to mention).  He reminded me of a guy I knew a long time ago, a 300 lb post adolescent with a body that touched both sides of a doorway.  His polite nickname was “Pudge” of course (you didn’t dare ridicule him with sobriquets like “Fat Boy”) and he had the fastest hands in the juvenile delinquent business.

 We used to drive weekly from Pennsylvania to Dino’s bar in   New York because the drinking age then and there was eighteen.  We went there to drink mostly but to fight if the opportunity availed itself.  Being a year older than the oldest of us,  Pudge was our unofficial leader.  While I never saw him pick a fight, I saw him finish plenty of them.  He had fast hands, quick combinations, and power behind his punches.

When I saw Andy  Ruiz Jr. fight the tall muscled Adonis like Ukrainian Dimitrenko not more than a few months ago, that’s who I thought of.  Pudge Benzoni.  It wasn’t called “fat shaming” back in the day but his kind of body attracted some ridicule, a big mistake for many a poor boy, who went down with a few cracks of Pudge’s meaty fat fists and a body which shivered and shook as he threw haymakers and short shots at would-be tough guys.

I like Anthony Joshua – as anyone would like an ambassador of boxing. But I’d always said he was steered away from tough fights by Eddie Hearn, a smart moneymaker, great talker, and (in spite of my early dislike of him)   a man good for boxing.   Between David Lamkin and I, a main point of contention was whether or not Anthony Joshua had ever faced a serious challenge. 

I admit, as Lamkin always maintained, that it was a triumph for Anthony Joshua to beat even  a nearly forty year old Vladimir Klitchko —  but not that much of one.  Still it was the only match challenge I’d seen him face — until Andy  Ruiz Jr.      

  I never believed Eddie Hearn’s hype about Deontay Wilder ‘ducking’ a fight with his boy.  There was all this talk, no documentation;  all Eddie Hearn had to do was show fight fans a contract that didn’t include the ridiculous short money 70 Joshua vs. 30 Wilder.  What was the rationale for that shenanigans anyway?  That Wilder was from Alabama?  That he is less articulate?  (It’s a bit smug, a bit too condescending and colonial besides) That he’s not as lovable to casual fight fans?  That’s all b.s. to real fight fans who only want to see who is the better fighter, the one who will be remembered for the moments of greatness and heightened consciousness it brought to our lives.

So I gotta’ say Viva Mexico! and Viva Andy Ruiz Jr.  It’s okay you want to call him a ‘counter-puncher’ if that’s how you see it.  But Ruiz Jr.’s fight is more than that. He had great head movement,  great poise,  ate big punches, and passed in and out of the violent circle as if all along he had a passport to victory.  But mainly what Andy Ruiz Jr. did, that other fighters failed to do, is get his punches off in the very same fractional seconds Anthony Joshua launched his.

You can have the big reach. You can have the big   punch, the 1-2-3 combination or the 2-3 or any other combination.  You can have the great body.  But you can’t defeat the earthquake shivering molten mass of energy contained in Andy Ruiz Jr.’s bull-like ham-hocks, back, legs, and fists. 

Ruiz got dumped early in the 3^rd round and the British fight fans whooped it up so loud that you can hear them from Madison Square Garden all the way to the Canadian border.   But you know what I saw as Ruiz looked up from the seat of his pants?  I saw his eyes narrow on Anthony Joshua. I saw his focus. 

He had no words but I saw what he was thinking as surely as if it were flashing on the MSG big screen.  He was thinking: “Okay, motherfucker, okay.  Now we’ll see what we’re both made of.”

Terrance "Bud" Crawford: The Silent Killer

By now you've heard:  After eleven grueling rounds, Terrance Crawford KO'd Jose Benvenitez in the closing minute of the twelvth with an upward rocket shot that almost lifted Benvenitez off his feet.  It was a fitting end for months of hostility between the two boxers with over-the-top trash talk coming from Benvenitez. 

I'm no purist when it comes to boxing and no stranger to trash talk. Lord knows I've heard enough of it.  Up to here with it, actually.  There was a time when it was fun and not so malicious as it has become.  I remember being at ringside during Muhammad Ali's sparring matches and listening to him with amusement as he taunted  his opponents to fight harder.  "C'mon chump, shoot your load. Is that all you got?"  And so forth, but aside from the violence, which was very real, Ali usually finished with a wink and a nod.

 But with this match-up, it seemed Jose was drumming up pure hatred.  Crawford did his usual job of tamping things down.  He's seen enough of violence not to be impressed with it. I like Jose B, to tell the truth, and I understand he was trying to drum up the subterranean rivalry between Mexican and African-American street gangs.  And I understand his purpose was to draw Crawford into a brawl where his (Jose's) power and size would be the determining factor.  But there was no excuse for descending to the level that he did.  So while I liked him as a fighter, I was glad Crawford knocked him down and finished him off. It wasn't easy -- Jose B fought a great fight in which he believed more in his power than in any kind of strategy.

Crawford pulled him out into the deep water, Jose tired, and those classy Sugar Ray (both) combinations kept raining down and around. 

Errol Spence Jr. Does Dallas ; Boxing Blowout

Errol Spence Jr. can count me as one of his fans but I'm looking forward to bigger challenges than Ocampo provided Saturday Night in the new Dallas Cowboys' stadium.

Ocampo went down for the count in the first round from some well-placed body blows.  

But unless you enjoyed the hoopla from Texas and the Dallas Cowboys, you might think the fight wasn't worth staying up for. 

 Spence Jr. was decked out in stunning Cowboys garb and they had superstar Cowboy players hugging it out in a big show of Texas' affection.  The affable Jerry Jones put himself in the picture but I wonder if the stadium spectacle overshadowed the purpose of the main event.  It was a bit much, even for me, and I'm usually okay with over-the-top.

In the later interview with Jimmy Lennon, Spence Jr. said he was looking forward to the outcome of Shawn Porter v. Danny Garcia.  The down side of it was that Spence vs. the Victor in that fight is not likely to occur until 2019, a disappointment for people who want to see Spence right now at the top of his game.

The young man is ready, has been ready, and I'd bet on him to end up on top of the division.   All of which brings us to Terrence Crawford and the possibility of a classic as Crawford moved up to the weight class.  Unfortunately, that's not likely to occur until late 2019 at the earliest.   Both Crawford and Spence Jr. are boxer-punchers, with Spence Jr. having the heavier hands (imho). If boxing fans should be so lucky as to see that fight materialize, we'd be back into the boxing time-machine to the era of Sugar Ray Leonard-Marvin Hagler - Tommy Hearns.  Or close to it.  

The Errol Spence Jr. fight wasn’t worth staying up late for, unless you enjoyed the hoopla from Texas and the Dallas Cowboys.  Ocampo went down for the count in the first round.  Errol Spence Jr was decked out in Cowboys garb and they had the Cowboy players hugging it out with Spence.  Jerry Jones put himself in the picture.  I don’t know if it was hilarious or pathetic. 

Boxing Around the World - Anthony Joshua is the European Champion

I'm no longer personally involved in boxing and this leaves me at something of a disadvantage.  I never let it go, however, and it never let go of me.  Unfortunately, I'm in no better a position than the average fan to handicap the sport.  So here I am, a fan, looking for a niche. 

There's been a regular bloom of boxing sites, here and abroad, and it's an everyday occurrence for me to use the hashtag #boxing to see what's going on.

After the Anthony Joshua  vs, Joseph Parker fight, and even before it, I had the feeling that Joshua's next victim would be Tyson Fury. Should that fight actually be set, I'd be very disappointed.  It would be an entertaining fight,   largely because of the clownish element attached to it. 

Tyson Fury seems happy enough to have the media spotlight focused on him without actually fighting. I suppose that's better than lying on your back with the ring lights spotlighted on you after Anthony Joshua gets an early knockout.  Joshua is a good boxer against the kind of talent he's faced so far.  He's very strong, has boxing skills, but his style is very conventional, and with the exception of his TKO of an aging Wladimir Klitchko, he's fought only to his own level and not a cut above.  A little heavyweight like Evander Holyfield would get to him easy. Of course there are no Holyfields around that I can see.

 Anthony Joshua s just yesterday  told Tyson Fury to either get busy or shut up.  I don't condemn Eddie Hearn for ka-ching- ka-ching but I do condemn him for his faked-assed deflections of Deontay Wilder's continuous unanswered challenges of the British champion.  A Twitter boxing analyst with the handle of Boxing Kingdom says that shyster Eddie offered disrespectful chump change to Wilder, not because he expected to get it, but because he needed to look like he was actually willing to risk his fake champion's belt when, in fact, he's scared to death of fighting Deontay Wilder. Here's the tweet I'm talking about:  https://twitter.com/BoxingKingdom14  It quotes Adam Abramovitz  of @SNboxing this way:  

  Anthony Joshua is  only the reigning European champion -- even if he has three belts.  I'm not buying he's the heavyweight champion of the world until he fights someone who's not clowning, dog.   And that would be Deontay Wilder.Deontay Wilder.Deontay Wilder.Deontay Wilder.Deontay Wilder.  I'd even be happy  if he took on 38 year old Luis Ortiz who almost KO'd Wilder in their recent bout.

Conor McGregor Learns Lesson, Quits Boxing

Okay, my headline is not an eyeball grabber and falls into the category of bad media as typified by Bleacher Report with its fat-stuffed  whiteboy  pro Conor McGregor SEO.  But you've got to fight fire with fire right?  Wrong, because I'm just telling the truth.

Bleacher Reporter was this morning  already pumping up McGregor's TKO loss to aged Mayweather (40). Cliches came up handy to the Menlo Park California whiteboy  entrepreneurs who founded B-R after bonding at a wealthy white-boy school in an exclusive district you can't afford to live.

Here's how it goes basically. "He did very well considering..."  Considering what?  Considering he looked bad, pounding at Mayweather illegally on the back of the head, backwards on his heels most of the time,  and then getting KO'd. 

Yes, that is doing very well to the Mayweather haters.  But remember this Mayweather hating thing goes back a long way, even to the days when Uncle Roger and Floyd Sr. were fighting.  Both dad and uncle were fighters who would have cleaned up most of the competition today but, in those days, you didn't come by a reputation easily. And for the elder Mayweathers,  boxing was the only school that allowed them in.

 I hold formal education in high regard. I hold white people in high regard too, being one of them.  But there are many very smart people  of every stripe, for reasons sociological or economic, didn't have the advantages of it. I have seen the Mayweathers deprecated in the media by these   bigoted snobs, and even Floyd Jr. himself for being 'illiterate.' This is not out of any desire to improve education in America's minority neighborhoods.  It is, in fact, a permissible sanitized bigotry that allows these anonymous critics to feel better about themselves.

It's for this reason that Floyd Jr.'s current nickname is 'Money'. Bigots rub his face into illiteracy so it's poetic justice that the 'ignorant' Mayweathers rub  bigots' noses into money. Keep striving, motherfuckers.

 So then McGregor comes up  with the notion of an early stoppage by the referee.  If I didn't know better, I'd agree with him in that one.  I wanted the thing played out to its logical conclusion -- McGregor doing a face plant on the canvas or on his back looking up dazed at the ring lights.

With his hands down, no longer punching for a full minute while Mayweather bludgeoned him around the ring, and with the 'save me' look in his eyes, the Ref stepped in to save his life.  Instead of being grateful, he tells his fans the ref stopped it early.  Yeah, right, early for him to be brain-dead. And for the record, I'm glad that Mayweather was pulling his punches when McGregor was obviously going down.

Back to the title -- It's more of a prognostication.  Conor McGregor and Dana White have partically accomplished what they intended, that is, to raise MMA's profile in the hope of drawing more profits.  So does this mean that an MMA guy like McGregor can beat even a Class C journeyman fighter?  Or how about one of those excellent Class B fighters. Or maybe one of the up and comers like Errol Spence, Jr. (one of my favorites as mentioned in previous articles) .

I thought  Mayweather - McGregor was ridiculous from the get-go.  If the MMA really wanted to prove itself, they might have had their guy doubling in boxing by fighting one of the many journeyman guys who would die for the chance to fight a highly promoted 'name.'

But no!  They had to fight one of the most famous boxers in history. Otherwise the scheme would fail. Otherwise, a young no-name fighter would knock McGregor out early and the world would yawn.

So that's why my suggestion is so important. Before the gullible MMA public begins to think the Mayweather-McGregor fight was a real thing, they should call for their guy to fight a young boxer of any rank, though preferably, I would pick one who has some distinction.

Errol Spence Jr. would eat him alive and early.  But because the whole act was a fraud, Conor McGregor will not be going the boxing route.  The sport is too hard. Conor McGregor and his fans know he would go right down the drain.

First Take August 24 from Las Vegas: Mayweather V. McGregor

First of all, I like Stephen A. and I love Mollie Q. and regarding Max Kellerman, well, not so much.  Well okay, Kellerman has it right when he says Conor McGregor has no chance.  But there he joins about 40 million fight fans who know the same thing.  Nonetheless, give him a pass. He has to cover it.

But among the people who are laughing at the spectacle are people like Teddy Atlas and Oscar De LaHoya, both of whom know a bit about the sport.  Paulie Malignaggi feels he got played when he got pushed down and someone in McGregor’s crew jumped up and snapped a picture of Paulie on the floor and sent it around. Malignaggi says the real story is that he slapped McGregor around for most of the sparring match, and that’s true.  Otherwise, McGregor and his boss Dana White would have freed the entire sparring session for broadcast. 

But since that session is a classified secret in the McGregor camp, and since the release of the clip would have people laughing, we have only to watch the You Tube clip of the session he had with South African boxing champ Chris Van Heerden .  McGregor looked like crap.  Just as in recent videos of his workouts, he’s slow and throws wide arm punches at poor angles and without snap.   Van Heerden said he could hit McGregor at will, that he was shocked at how badly McGregor looked. 

Stephen A. is a veritable oracle at basketball but he appeared as bewildered as a guy recovering from a three-day drunk when he hosted First Take August 24.  He evidently felt compelled to pretend that McGregor has a chance, the ‘big punch’ and all that, or that Mayweather is near death at age 40.

  We all know what the suckers think.  I don’t know if Stephen A believes himself or whether it’s just your classic sell-out to the ESPN powers that be.  Probably it’s a bit of both.  Or maybe he's hoping something really weird will happen, like the time that clown parachuted into the ring during the Evander Holyfield v. Riddick Bowe fight.

Miguel Flores v. Chris Avalos: Good Fights That End Badly

Under the category of ‘Good Fights That End Badly’ is Tuesday’s boxing FS1 Toe-to-Toe-Tuesday matchup between Miguel Flores and Chris Avalos.  Both boxers acquitted themselves superbly although I would have given Flores the win if they’d gone to the scorecards.  Instead, the referee   ruled Avalos the winner by RTD.

At first I didn’t get what was going on when   ref Bruce McDaniel stopped the fight at a break in the action.  RTD means retired by technical decision.  If you’re wondering how RTD differs from TKO, the latter (TKO) means you were stopped in the ring by the punches of the opponent.  In that case, the ref jumps in and stops one fighter from taking further     punishment.  Those punches you take when you’re out on your feet are the ones that can kill you.  But that wasn’t the case here.

An RTD occurs when a fighter refuses to continue or his corner won’t let him continue. In Flores’ case, he was bleeding from a   cut opened up by an unintentional head butt and a combination of punches.  McDaniel says the cut opened up first from a punch. But even if that were so, a head-butt occurred and made it impossible to continue. If strict rules of interpretation (as in criminal law) were applied, then the head-butt would have been the reason for the stoppage and Flores would have been declared the winner. 

 I don’t think anyone knows which caused the greater damage but everyone (including Avalos) acknowledges the head butt.  If the fight were stopped at that point, and for that reason, I would have gone to the scorecards.  The referee, believing that the cut was opened in an earlier round,  went for the RTD.

By the way, all three judges had Flores winning when the fight was halted.

    

Gennady GGG Golovkin Decisions Danny Jacobs (Beauty and the Beast)

Okay, I’m a whiteboy. So maybe you are   thinking  I’m looking at GGG as the “Beauty” and Danny Jacobs as the “Beast.”   It’s the other way around. And I was for Danny Jacobs before I was against him. 

The reason I was for Jacobs at first was because I followed him for a long time, even before he got cancer. He was someone   the amateurs I used to train looked up to as an up and coming star.  Our kids liked fighters from Brooklyn  like   Curtis Stevenson and Danny Jacobs, and Zab Judah, and Riddick Bowe. And others whose names I can’t remember at the moment.

The reason I switched to rooting for GGG at the last minute were duofold.  I have seen that Golovkin, while he has infinitely more fans than many promotors will admit, has been jerked around by many of the avaricious   boxing promoters, as have other Eastern European fighters.  Reason? I hope it’s not because they’re white and they’re Russian.

  On the alt.boxing channels, I’ve had to listen to many scurrilous and disparaging things about Golovkin, the purpose of which was to downplay GGG’s star value so that people like Canelo Alvarez have excuses not to make contracts to fight him.  

The second reason I had for switching  to GGG was because Jacobs had agreed to go for all the title belts up for grabs, including the IBF.  It was the IBF rules that required a same-day weigh-in. 

Everyone could see beforehand that Jacobs is the bigger middleweight, with a bigger frame, and could take on more pounds.  If he didn’t want to make same-day weight he shouldn’t have made that part of the deal. He broke his word.  Golovkin is a true middleweight – the 160 pound class is the perfect fit.  In the post-fight press conference, Jacobs said he weighed 175 – fifteen pounds over the weight.  It's possible he was closer to 180.

Politically and in terms of risk and business, I completely understand why Jacobs wouldn’t want to get down to the 170 lb grace weight.  It was the shot of his career and one I’m glad he got it.

 Personally, I’ve always thought he was a far more dangerous opponent for GGG than Canelo Alvarez.   I said many times, and publicly, that the oddsmakers were crazy making Jacobs the underdog.  It was a 50-50 fight to me from the git-go.  I'd seen Jacobs fight when people weren't paying attention to him.

. GGG never whines as some fighters (and promotors) do and has, right from the beginning, taken on all comers. The larger problem was that there weren’t that many ‘comers.’ Lots of folks made excuses not to sign their guys to fight GGG.

I had Golovkin   the winner mainly because of the knockdown, but not strictly that either.  Even so, the fight was close enough that Danny Jacobs seemed entirely reasonable in his post-fight press conference.  Owing to whatever subjectivity I am prey to, I had the fight 112-115, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Leave out the knockdown and it depends on the kind of fight you like.  Still, there was enough of beauty in Golovkin’s style to satisfy the sweet scientists amongst us.  And there was enough of beast in Danny Jacobs style to reinforce what I’ve always thought – he’s a gifted strong middleweight.

But basically it was  GGG   with his search and destroy style against Danny Jacobs far more complex and in-the-tradition boxing style. Pretty combinations landed hard sometimes – double left hooks, uppercuts in combination, neat stuff.

But in round four when Jacobs was dumped, he clutched at Golovkin’s leg for some reason. It wasn’t to keep himself from falling because he was already down . 

Golovkin’s unorthodox double right hand was what put Jacobs down.  Very creative, I thought.  Creative also was Danny Jacobs remarks in the press conference that the knockdown didn’t hurt him. He did get up and recover, to his credit. And what else would he say in a career that suddenly has gained serious traction from this fight? Danny Jacobs is a seriously smart student of the game and a serious smart and articulate spokesman for himself.

Beauty and the Beast.  In so far as the prettiest boxer of the two, it’s Danny Jacobs hands down. That’s a matter of my own personal choice;  I’m in no way intended to be persuasive.  I like chocolate. You like vanilla. That’s all.  Think of Sugar Ray Leonard as the Beauty;  Roberto Duran as the Beast.  Or Jake LaMotta v. Sugar Ray Robinson. It’s like that.   

I think now that, if matches can be arranged within 2017, both Gennady Golovkin and Danny Jacobs would KO Canelo Alvarez.  If Alvarez doesn’t stumble over Chavez Jr., he’s going to look awfully silly not signing Golovkin.  Unfortunately, Alvarez’ promotors will find it a lot easier to steer clear of Danny Jacobs because of the catchweight problem.

David Lemieux Hammers Curtis Stevenson in Sensational Round 3 KO

I’m wondering if Curtis Stevens was cold in the 8 degree weather when he arrived at the Turning Stone boxing arena in Verona New York. Maybe Canadian David Lemieux was more accustomed to the bitter winter weather. 

But if Stevens was cold, he left colder, put to sleep by Lemieux in the third round by a classic combination of right-hand and a left-hook follow.  I don’t see Curtis Stevens as being finished, but I think his sensational early days are well behind him.  In spite of recent wins, Stevens is  still in the position of being the ‘opponent’ . The tag will stick as he becomes more and more the former ‘name’ or rung on the ladder other people have to climb.

I hope he’s saved enough money to retire. It was kind of tough watching his mom there at ringside praying for him to open his eyes. Stevens had his run, I’m afraid, and there was no disgrace in losing to David Lemieux, a guy who I’ve always underestimated.

There is no way to underestimate him now. His 8^th ground KO at the hands of Gennady Golovkin was merely one in a long line of GGG KOs.  And while I’m at it, I think I have (by only a tiny bit) underestimated both fighters at one time or another and it’s time I admitted it. At the same time, I’ve always liked and respected both.

What impressed me most last night about David Lemieux was not only his power (which I knew about), nor his speed (which was always evident), nor his boxing knowledge (apparent, too) but his TIMING. 

Timing is something magical that happens when boxers are fighting at a certain high level.  No matter how fast the action looks from the outside, there is something in a   fighter’s mind that clicks in and films the fight in slow motion. Fortunately, the rest of us have real show motion to watch, enabling us to see (but only after watching the slow motion 3 or 4 times…lol) exactly what happened.

The fight was interesting in all three rounds. In the second, Lemieux was told to settle back a little and pick his shots which he did and very effectively. I suppose the announcers were being respectful in speaking of Stevens ‘coming on.’ I didn’t see any ‘coming on.’

But Stevens  (and I’ve seen him do this in other recent fights) was letting himself get backed up against the ropes, something he never did in his early fights. Then in one minute fifty nine seconds of the third round, he was backed up again, and with perfect timing Lemieux threw a touch feint jab to hide a crushing straight right hand that landed flush. Stevens’s instinct was to counter with a flailing hook that was weakened by the right hand he took. 

And that’s where the part about Lemieux’s amazing TIMING comes in. What looked like Lemieux’s fluid left hook in real time actually contained the very slightest hesitation before striking with leverage and power (for doesn’t one flow from the other?)  

In that fraction of a second measured usually and only in racing and the NFL combine, Lemieux’s guiding instinct was to ‘wait’ (waiting is the wrong word but there’s no smaller word to describe a fraction of a second) until Stevens’s right hand lowered enough for Lemieux’s hook to penetrate his guard. And boom!

Okay, look at it as a movement all in one piece, fine. Touch jab, right hand, left hook. Fine.  The reason I mention it is that Lemieux’s timing was right on the money in every punch he threw.  His sense of timing was such that the could have beaten a computer last night.  And so, I must give him his   props with apologies for underestimating him in the first place.

Do I think he can beat GGG in a rematch? My pick would be GGG again.  But I’d like to see Lemieux matched up against Canelo Alvarez.  Not going to happen, because Alvarez is booked up with Chavez Jr. and for how long can Canelo delay a fight with GGG?

For all that, I think it’s about time Alvarez and everybody else stopped talking about how much of a public draw Alvarez is and how lesser a draw is GGG.  Golovkin’s getting older. I want to see himn in his prime. Beating him in old age doesn’t count.

WTF do I care about those fan numbers anyway?  Golovkin is a plenty big draw and there’s plenty of money for both fighters.  I tried to keep an open mind about it but now it’s clear that Golovkin wants to fight and Canelo wants to delay.

I’ll bet ten to one that Alvarez is hoping for Danny Jacobs to knock GGG off. That’s a possibility that shows GGG’s bona fides, his authenticity, because Jacobs is a greater risk than Chavez Jr. in the weight class.

Keith Thurman Won, Danny Garcia Didn't Lose

Nobody bothered to tell Danny Garcia that the fight was an invitation to "Dancing with the Stars."

I picked Danny Garcia to win last night’s unification bout against Keith Thurman.  What happened is that both men went into the fight with strategies in mind.  I was wrong about the outcome but I had Thurman’s strategy right even before he stepped into the ring.

You didn’t have to be a genius to figure it out.  Danny Garcia has a reputation of being a slow starter.  He usually plants himself in a good defensive posture where he can bang but he relies on the other person to fight.  So I knew Thurman would jump on him in the early rounds, which he did effectively. The problem with that strategy came later, in the middle of the fight, when he discovered that Danny Garcia was still there, unhurt, and had a chin like a cement block.

 And  that’s where Keith Thurman went into the second phase of his strategy – Dancing with the Stars.  I’m sure his people had discussed it with Thurman before the fight.  Jump on him early and try to put Garcia down.  Get ahead. But if Danny Garcia is still there in the middle rounds, then use your feet, don’t let him get set, above all don’t fight with the guy. You’re now the Dancing Queen.  Your job is to win on points. Amateur rules.  Get the two belts. That’s where the money is. Boxing is a business.

It worked, too.  The judges had it about right in the scoring.  The one judge who had Thurman way out far ahead didn’t deduct points for Thurman’s failing to engage in the second part of the fight.  The two judges who had it 115-113 both ways gave Garcia credit for aggressiveness in the later rounds, pushing the fight people expected to see.

Give the early rounds to Thurman, no doubt.  I didn’t like Thurman’s fight in the second half but feel the decision was accurate according to the rules. That being said, Thurman didn’t gain admirers with what was a showy but disappointing performance.

Danny Garcia also had a game plan.   He’d stand inside the pockets for the early onslaught, take whatever shots Thurman gave, capitalize on the opportunity if there was one, and then come on in the middle rounds. Trouble was that Thurman didn’t provide any opportunities in the early rounds and fought really well for maybe three-four rounds.  Then came the problem with Danny Garcia strategy – they guessed wrong, believing that Thurman would settle down to fight.  If Thurman did stand in and fight, he was going to get battered. But he didn’t stand in.  He danced, pop-shooting here and there.   And Garcia Inc. didn’t adjust to the situation, fighting too cautiously, and not pressing until rounds 8 through 12.  Easoer said than done, I suppose.  But Thurman’s waltz gave rise to lots of well-deserved booing and didn’t win him any friends.

Thurman’s people may have been content to conduct business in collecting two titles, but that kind of fight don’t sell in places like Fresno, Oxnard, and Stockton. Those are fight venues where un-hyped, unheralded not yet known fighters are . . . well…. actually fighting.

 Jonathan Maicelo,  Danny Valdivia, Andy Vences, Alex “Cholo” Saucedo, Jose Carlos Ramirez and other names you never heard of and I can’t spell are waiting in the wings. Judging by Thurman’s general tendency to avoid confrontations, they will be in for a long wait.

Bottom line:  Thurman won, but at the same time, I’m not finding it easy say that Danny Garcia lost.  I know for a fact that he picked up a few more fans by his serious, hard-work, no b.s., old-school Philly style.  How are those ribs today, Keith Thurman?

Errol Spence Jr. – Here Comes the Next Big Thing in Welterweight Boxing

This fighter has the look of someone who knows what's about to go down.

When I say Errol Spence Jr. will be the next big thing in boxing, people will say I don’t know what I’m talking about. He's too green. He hasn't fought any of the big names.  But if the topic is Errol Spence Jr., they will be wrong. 

He’s 26 years old but has the ring maturity of a fighter of much longer standing. What does this mean?  It means he sees and understands immediately what the other fighter is doing.  There is no waiting period.  There is no ‘feeling-out.’ He knows what to do and immediately gets to doing it. Which is destroying. 

Errol Spence Jr. has a record of 21-0 but he’s knocked out 86% of his opponents. This puts him into the category of a slugger but watch him and you’ll see he’s a lot more than that.  He has a great sense of ring space, of positioning, that thing which boxing commentators call “ring generalship.” 

It is true he has not been rushed along but victories over his last two opponents are instructive.  His punching power comes from both hands in punches both economical and accurate.  He stunned Leonard Bundu with a classic left uppercut (Spence Jr. is a southpaw) and later KOd his man with the same uppercut followed by a hard right hook.

Never in a hurry, Errol Spence Jr. knows that his opponents will fall under an accumulation of blows if they last more than a few rounds.  It is perhaps that he knocks people out too soon that is his greatest vulnerability (if that can even be said to be a weakness b/c who doesn’t want to go home early?)

Some people have said that Errol Spence Jr. looked good only if his opponents stood in front of him.  Enter Chris Algieri.  Whatever may be said of Algieri, he is athletic, hard to hit, comes to win rather than to lay down, and had acquitted himself decently against top talent like Manny Pacquiao.  Spence Jr. looked like that ideal boxer-puncher guy as he stalked Algieri, beat him down with thudding punches, and forced the end of the fight early – something that Pacquiao couldn’t do.

In the same vein, Keith Thurman couldn’t get rid of Leonard Bundu whereas Spence Jr. did – and in bone-crushing style. 

I don’t really adhere to the so-and-so did such-and-such to whatever boxer and therefore one may draw a conclusion about a different fight. It’s more something to talk about rather than a yardstick with which one can gauge fights. Every fighter is different and every fight is different. It’s boxing, reknowned for its dangers and one-punch upsets. 

My point is that Errol Spence Jr. is the real deal, a throwback fighter and legit tough-guy (albeit with an engaging public demeanor for a kid 26 years old).  They are in different weight classes but I’m putting him up there soon to follow my other two favorite ‘new big things in boxing’ – Gennady Golovkin (36-0) and Saul Alvarez (48-1) .   

Tyson Fury: Running to the Ends of the Earth to Avoid Fighting Vladimir Klitschko

I was promised a private interview session with Britain’s engaging and entertaining World Heavyweight Champion Tyson Fury but all I got was this holograph.  I shouldn’t be surprised that Tyson Fury was a no show because everyone’s having trouble finding Tyson Fury.

Oh, he showed up for his surprise birthday part with family and friends, but the quickly disappeared.  Several real heavyweight boxers are looking for him. First in line former Heavyweight Champion Vladimir Klitschko (remember him?) had a special kind of date with him on July 9 after Fury stole the title from him in a lackluster sloppy fight that looked like what happened in a mosh pit. 

I’m sure Vladimir Klitchko regrets being bored that night he lost the title. Bored or drugged, I don’t know which, but likely he felt he didn’t have to train to defeat a long tall string bean who knew how to scuffle and smother but not to fight.  The judges awarded the decision to the elated Fury who is working hard to stay elated forever by being unavailable for anything but fun being heavyweight champ.

Surely, Fury realizes the impossibility of his position. And why shouldn’t he hold the title as long as she can even if it means wearing disguises and traveling only at night so that other fighters can’t find him. 

So I ask the Holograph Tyson Fury why he doesn’t get it over with.  He points at his foot.  “You see this? A bunion?  You know what happens if you risk the title by going into the ring with a bunion.” 

But you keep delaying, and you pop up once in a while like a jack-in-the box in the oddest places talking about what a great fighter you are.  And then you were so frightened that you were said to be taking performance enhancing drugs.  But no fights? 

Are you waiting for the 40 something Klitchko to pass away from old age?  And look, there are lots of young fighters just waiting for you since you claim Klitchko will be a cakewalk. 

   “What about Deontay Wilder?” I ask.

Ah, Alabama!  What? Alabama.  Who wants to go to Alabama?  Oh no, I protest, Deontay says he will fight you in Buckingham Palace if you wish, or Picadilly Circus, or under a streetlamp in Brixton.

To name just two.  C’mon man, give it up.  We’ve heard of running but that usually refers to inside the ring running.  You run like a space traveler, dude. You got lucky. We like you and you’ve had your five minutes in the spotlight. What I have against what you’re doing is that you’re holding up the careers of a lot of good people.

Let’s get it on, Tyson Fury. The curtain’s down. You have to know it’s time to exit stage left.