By Eric Armit
I am not much of a one for looking back particularly when 2018 already holds so much to look forward to. By the end of the year for the first time since the WBO entered the scene in 1989 and Francesco Damiani won their initial heavyweight title we have the prospect of fighter holding all four versions of the title. The Anthony Joshua vs. Joseph Parker fight which now seems set for 31 March in Cardiff will unify the IBF, WBA and WBO titles. It then must be the next logical step that the winner of 3 March fight between Deontay Wilder and Luis Ortiz for the WBC portion will want to go against the winner of Joshua vs. Parker. With all due respect to Parker and Ortiz (but a bit less of that respect to drugs cheat Ortiz) the fight the public will hope for is Joshua vs. Wilder. There is no way that either of these two fighters could walk away from that fight not just because of the money but also out of pride and even at this stage of their careers the legacy. For me that Joshua vs. Wilder match would be the fight of 2018 but if that is not enough we will also have Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul Alvarez II, the all-British super middleweight fight between George Groves and Chris Eubank Jr and a super flyweight extravaganza in Inglewood on 24 February. To get us in the mood we will also have on 20 January in New York Errol Spence vs. Lamont Peterson for the IBF welter title and Robert Easter defending his IBF light title against Javier Fortuna. On 27 January there is a double bill featuring Jorge Linares defending his WBA lightweight title against Filipino Mercito Gesta and Lukas Matthysse vs. Teerachai (Tewa Kiram) for the vacant secondary WBA welter title and on the same night in Riga we have Olek Usyk vs. Mairis Breidis in the first of the WSSB cruiserweight semi-finals which will also unify the WBC and WBO titles. The second semi-final in Adler, Russia on 17 February between Murat Gassiev and Yunier Dorticos will unify the WBA and IBF titles clearing the way for a fight unifying all four versions of the cruiserweight title later in the year. On 3 February in Corpus Christi Gilberto Ramirez defends his WBO super middle title against Habib Ahmed and Jerwin Ancajas defends his IBF super fly title against Israel Gonzalez. One week later in London Zolani Tete puts his IBF bantam title up against Omar Narvaez in and on the same night in San Antonio Mikey Garcia challenges Sergey Lipinets for the IBF super light title and Rances Barthelemy and Kiryl Relikh punch it out for the vacant WBA super light title, There is Danny Garcia facing Brandon Rios on 17 February and Victor Ortiz clashing with Devon Alexander on the same night. If that sounds good don’t forget that only covers the next 6-8 weeks with Sergey Kovalev vs. Igor Mikhalkin on March 3 in New York. Carl Frampton vs. Nonito Donaire in April, Amir Imam and Jose Carlos Ramirez ready to fight for the WBC super light title on 17 March (if Terrence Crawford relinquishes the title) and Felix Verdejo returning to action on the same show and with the certainty that Vasyl Lomachenko, Terrence Crawford, Tony Bellew vs. David Haye are all sure to provide other big nights. It looks a great year ahead so let’s look forward not back. To paraphrase Roy Scheider in Jaws-you’re going to need a bigger diary! Having said that for me the WSSB which started last year is the best thing to happen to top level boxing in years. Apart from the world scene there are some good European title fights coming also. A busy night on 27 January will see Alessandro Goddi 33-2-1face unbeaten Pole Kamil Szeremeta 16-0 for the vacant middleweight title, Yves Ngabu puts his cruiser title on the line against Geoffrey Battelo in Belgium and in an all-Spanish affair Mark Vidal defends the featherweight title against Sergio Blanco. When they fought for the vacant title last July after eleven rounds Blanco was in front on two cards only for Vidal to snatch the win by a knockdown in the last round. Purse offers are due on 15 January for Karo Murat defending his super middleweight title against Serhiy Demchenko and on 29 January for a clash of unbeaten flyweights between Vincent Legrand 26-0 and WBC No 2 Andrew Selby. The unbeaten Welsh fighter is in line for a shot at the WBC title so taking on the freakish 5’8 ½” (174cm) French southpaw is a risk. On the same day purse offers are due for the vacant welterweight title between Ahmed El Mousaoui and hot Spanish hope 24-0 Kerman Lejarraga. Ukrainian heavyweight Alex Dimitrenko gets one last chance to revive his career as he challenges unbeaten European heavy champion Agit Kabayel. No date or venue yet and in what will be a huge fight for Swedish fans Sauerland Event have yet to name the date or place for Otto Wallin vs. Adrian Granat for bragging rights in Scandinavia and for the vacant European Union title. The purse was reported to be approx. $100,000 to be split 50/50. Despite losing his IBF light fly title Milan Melindo has said he will not be retiring. It was good to see that Ryoichi Taguchi who unified the WBA and IBF light flyweight titles by beating Melindo intends to honour the IBF stipulation that Hekkie Budler must get the next show at their title. The little men might be as well keeping an eye on what’s coming up behind them. Australian Jason Moloney, the WBA No 9 bantam, is coming up fast. The undefeated Moloney is taking on Namibian Immanuel Naidjala in Melbourne on 24 February with the vacant Commonwealth bantamweight title and Moloney’s WBA Oceania title on the line. Moloney is 15-0 and Naidjala lost on points to Tomoki Kameda for the WBA title a while back so a good match Twin brother Andrew, also 15-0, will be defending his Oceania title on the same show. He is No 6 super fly with the WBA Despite turning down an offer to fight Khalid Yafai on the super fly extravaganza Roman Gonzalez is not contemplating retirement. His plan is to ease back with a fight in Nicaragua in April and see how that goes before making any further plans. He will shortly be moving to Costa Rica to start his training. The WBA have been correctly slated for ranking British boxer Joe Fournier at No 11 in their light heavyweight ratings. He won their vacant International title scoring a second round knockdown on his way to a sixth round stoppage of Dominican Wilmer Mejia on December 17. This despite the fact that Fournier is clearly shown on BoxRec to have tested positive for a banned substance at a fight in Belgium in June 2016 and being given a two year suspension which was reduced to 18 months. That means his suspension does not end until June 2018. Despite the posting on BoxRec Fournier fought four times in the Dominican Republic between June and December 2016 when he was under suspension. In addition two sources advised me that they had informed the WBA last month that Fournier was under suspension. The WBA actions are disgraceful but there is another question-who is licensing Fournier? The British Board would respect the Belgian positive test result and not permit Fournier to fight in Britain but someone has chosen to licence a boxer despite knowing he is suspended and the WBA do not licence boxers so they are not the only culprits here. Lou DiBella has announced his signing of former super lightweight champion Julius Indongo but that has brought an immediate response from Namibian promoter Nestor Tobias who claims that his contract with Indongo includes an extension if Indongo won a world title-which he did last year. Could be a legal battle looming. If students find out that they have a substitute teacher coming in for the day it can either be a matter of indifference or an opportunity to have a bit of fun and rag the newbie. I don’t think these students felt indifference and I am sure there was no ragging as their substitute teacher just happened to be a certain Wladimir Klitschko. Ok sit up straight kids and listen because Wlad was there to give them some inspirational advice on overcoming fear and adopting a positive approach to life’s challenges. It appears that the day was a big success but I couldn’t help wondering whether Wlad’s challengers over the years would have benefited from some advice on overcoming fear and adopting a positive approach to tackling the big Ukrainian. News of another former champion saw a statue being erected in Fazana, Croatia to Mate Parlov. Parlov was there for the unveiling. Parlov was an outstanding amateur. He lost to Chris Finnegan in the quarter-finals of the 1968 Olympics but won the gold in 1972 and gold at the World Amateur Championships in 1974. As a pro he was European and WBC light heavyweight champion and beat Miguel Angelo Cuello, John Conteh and Tony Mundine. He lost his title to Marvin Johnson but then moved up to cruiser and drew and then lost to Marvin Camel in fights for the vacant WBC title before retiring. The greatest boxer ever produced by Croatia. Axel Schulz is a former Wlad challenger who is still in demand. Schulz has been taken on by a major German TV company to do expert analysis for them and will kick off his new job during the coverage of the interesting fight between Vincent Feigenbutz and Ryno Liebenberg in Ludwigsburg on 17 February. It is an important fight for both men. Feigenbutz is rebuilding after losing on an eleventh round stoppage against Giovanni de Carolis for the secondary WBA super middle title in 2016. He has compiled six wins since then and is rated in the top 15 by all four bodies so can’t afford a slip up. Liebenberg went through a 1-5 spell with all five losses to world rated opponents. He stopped the rot with a win in October but this one could be too tough for him. Two of the biggest stars in Chinese boxing, Zou Shiming and Rex Tso have both come through rocky periods. Since losing his WBO flyweight title to Sho Kimura in July the medical news has all been bad for Zou. He had suffered a variety of orbital fractures and his vision was affected by cataracts, vitreous opacity and other symptoms and surgery is needed. Despite that news Zou Shiming is adamant that he will recover and fight on. In Tso’s case he has been in some very hard fights. He took a lot of punishment before beating Kohei Kono on a technical decision in October when the fight was stopped due to a large hematoma on the left side of Tso’s head. The only thing he has said about plans to return is that right now he has none so it is not known when or if he will fight again. Isaac Dogboe’s win over Cesar Juarez has made a huge impact in Ghana and it is being used as a springboard to get the Government and sponsors to back boxing there. Dogboe has gone against the trend in as far as he first made a big splash when he competed at the 2012 Olympics in London and then won the English amateur title. He then scored his first six wins in fights in England, Switzerland and the USA before returning to Ghana to continue his career and won his title there. Generally boxers from Ghana have had to go elsewhere to get a title shot but there has been enough backing in Ghana for Dogboe to win the interim title. If he wants to fight the real WBA super bantam champion Jesse Magdaleno he is going to have to go to the USA but on a visit to the offices of the President assurances were given that the government was ready to support and solicit funds to aid Ghanaian potential champions in 2018. In the meantime it is situation normal for some Ghanaians. As I noted previously Habib Ahmed travels to Corpus Christi to challenge WBO super middle champion Gilberto Ramirez on 3 February whilst Raphael Mensah is reportedly to be in line to challenge WBA super feather champion Alberto Machado and Richard Commey will hope to build towards a second world title shot when he tackles 22-0 Angel Luna in San Antonio on 10 February.
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By Eric Armit
One of the areas of controversy which arose out of the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Conor McGregor fight was whether by beating McGregor Mayweather had earned the right to have officially overtaken Rocky Marciano’s record for most victories of a world champion retiring undefeated with a 100% record. Marciano clocked up 49 victories and the win over McGregor moved Mayweather to 50. It is difficult to argue that the McGregor win should not be counted. As Marciano’s wins over Lee Epperson, Jimmy Weeks and Gilbert Cardone, none of whom had won a fight, are included in Marciano’s record then McGregor also has to be counted in Mayweather’s record. Floyd Patterson’s win over Pete Rademacher is accepted by all of the record books as a legitimate heavyweight title fight even though Rademacher had never had a professional fight. So Mayweather sits at the top of the table of world champions who retired with a 100% record but he is only No 3 in the list of former world champions who retired undefeated. Throughout the history of boxing there have been multiple title claimants recognised by a wide variety of bodies. In some cases the USA has recognised a fighter as world champion with Britain and Europe having their own claimant and it was not unusual in the past for bodies such as the New York State Commission to recognise a fighter as world champion. If you take the light heavyweight division at various times the NBA (a fore runner to the WBA), New York, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Canada, United Kingdom, the EBU and Michigan have all endorsed champions. Over and above the achievement of winning a world title and retiring undefeated is the mystique and prestige of an unbeaten run either at the start of a career or anytime during a career. Today promoters and managers will go a long way to keep that “0” losses on a fighter’s record and of course it becomes an important matter of pride for a fighter to be unbeaten whether for only a relatively small number of fights or many years and many fights. Of course to retire undefeated or even more impressively to win every fight is a dream career and Mayweather and Marciano sit at the very top of that table at 50 wins in 50 fights and 49 wins in 49 fights respectively. They may soon be passed by the WBC minimum champion Chayaphon Moonsri (Wanheng) who is 49-0 and still active so 51 wins should be well within his compass. To focus solely on champion who won every fight or fighters who went undefeated over a long career but with a draw here and there is to over look some of the incredible unbeaten runs achieved by fighters either at the start of or during their career and on numbers of fights some of those unbeaten runs far surpass Mayweather’s 50 so I have tried to put together the longest unbeaten runs in number of fights as follows: A) Throughout a career B) At the start of a career C) At any time during their career D) Fighters who are currently unbeaten and could fight their way into A, B or C. A World champions who were unbeaten throughout their career. Top 5 are 1) Jimmy Barry 68 fights (58-0-10) Born Chicago, Illinois 1 January 1901. Died 4 April 1943. Fought from January 1891 until September 1899. Won world title bouts at 100lbs, 105lbs, 108lbs and 110lbs and drew in a fight for a world title at 115lbs. Irish/American he was recognised as World Bantamweight Champion from 1894 to 1899. Won his first 42 fights, drew his last 8. 2) Ricardo Lopez 52 fights (51-0-1) Cuernavaca, Mexico. Born 25 July 1966. Fought from January 1985 until September 2001. Turned pro at 18. World Titles: WBC, WBA & WBO Minimum and IBF Light Flyweight. Won his first 47 fights. Was 25-0-1 in 26 world title fights. He was four-time Mexican Golden Gloves Champion. 3) Floyd Mayweather Jr 50 (50-0) Grand Rapids, Michigan. Born Floyd Joy Sinclair.24 February 1977. Fought from October 1996 until August 2017 Titles: WBC Super Featherweight, WBC Lightweight, WBC Super Lightweight, IBF, WBC, WBA and WBO Welterweight, WBC and WBA Super Welterweight. Won a bronze medal at the 1966 Olympic Games. Father Floyd and Uncles Roger and Jeff were also professionals. 4) Rocky Marciano 49 (49-0) Brockton Massachusetts. Real name Rocco Francis Marchegiano. Born 1 September 1923. Died 31 August 1969. Fought from March 1947 until September 1955. Scored 43 wins by KO/TKO made six title defences. Titles: World Heavyweight. Reported to have had an 8-4 amateur record. 5) Joe Calzaghe 46 (46-0) Welsh but born Hammersmith, London 23 March 1972 Fought from October 1933 until November 2008. Titles WBA, WBC and WBO Super Middleweight titles and Ring Magazine recognition as Light Heavyweight Champion. Made 21 defences of the WBO title. Longest reigning super middle weight champion having held the WBO title for over ten years. Was British amateur champion three times. Notes: Some sources have Jack McAuliffe from Cork who won the American version of the lightweight title as having been unbeaten in 53 fights but his International Hall of Fame biography gives him 36 “Official” fights so I have gone with that. Only Mayweather, Marciano and Calzaghe won all of their fights. B) Fighters with the longest unbeaten run at the start of their career but lost subsequent fights. Top 10 are: 1) Jimmy Wilde 95 (93-0-2) Wales. Born 15 May 1892. Died 10 March 1969. Work in the mines at the age of 12. First professional fight January 1911. He suffered his first career loss in 1915 by TKO in 17 rounds against Scotsman Tancy Lee in a fight for the British European and IBU world titles (Lee’s record at the time 17-1). Because of the wide weight difference of 8-10lbs Wilde weighed in fully clothed. Scored 99 wins by KO/TKO. Final career record 132-3-.1. 2) Julio Cesar Chavez 90 (89-0-1) Ciudad Obregon, Mexico. Born 12 July 1962. First professional fight February 19 80. He suffered his first professional loss in January 1994 against Frankie Randall (Randall’s record at the time (48-2-1). A three division champion he took part in 37 world title fights going 31-4-2. Chavez’s run of 87 consecutive wins is a record. Final career record 107-6-2. 3) Jamie Gine 76 (69-0-7) Charata, Argentina. Born 10 April 1933. Died 11 February 2008. Argentinian and South American Lightweight Champion. First professional fight February 1954. He suffered his first loss in February 1960 against Nicolino Locche (Locche’s record at the time 8-1-3).Final career record 90-9-16. 4) Gustav Scholz 68 (64-0-4) Berlin, Germany. Born 12 April 1030. Died 21 August 2000. First professional fight October 1948. He suffered his first loss in March 1958 against Charles Humez (Humez’s record at the time (92-6-1). Titles won: German Welterweight and Middleweight, European Middleweight and Light Heavyweight. He turned pro with no amateur experience. Went into films and TV after finishing with boxing. Final career record 88-2-6. 5) Nino Benvenuti 65 (65-0) Italian, born Izola which was Italian at the time of Benvenuti’s birth but is now Slovenian. Born 26 April 1938. First professional fight January 1961. He suffered his first loss in June 1966 against Ki-Soo Kim in South Korea (Kim’s record at the time 22-0-2). Benvenuti had beaten Kim at the 1960 Olympics). Titles won: World Light Middleweight and Middleweight, European Middleweight, Italian Middleweight. Won gold medal at the 1960 Olympic Games and was reportedly unbeaten in 120 amateur fights. After boxing went into films, business and politics. He was 2-1 in fights with Emile Griffith with Griffith standing as a godfather to one of Benvenuti’s sons. Final career record 82-7-1. 6) Willie Pep 62 (62-0) Middleton, USA. Real name Guglielmo Papaleo. Born 19 September 1922.Died 23 November 2006. First professional fight July 1940. He suffered his first loss in March 1943 against Sammy Angott (Angott’s record at the time 69-17-5). Titles won World Featherweight, New York State Athletic Commission version of world featherweight. A former shoeshine boy. Served as a referee and inspector after he retired. Final career record 229-11-1. 6 tied) Ruben Olivares 62 (61-0-1) Mexico City, Mexico. Born 14 January 1947.First fight January 1965. He suffered his first loss October 1970 against Chucho Castillo (Castillo’s record at the time 40-9-2). He scored 57 wins by KO/TKO in those 62 fights. Titles won: World Bantamweight WBA and WBC Featherweight. Turner pro at 17 after being omitted from the Mexican team for the 1964 Olympics. He took part in 14 world title fights. Final career record 89-13-3. 8) Billy Graham 58 (52-0-6) New York, USA: Born 9 September 1922. Died 22 January 1992. First fight April 1941. He suffered his first loss in September 1949 against Tony Pellone (Pellone’s record at the time 17-5-5). Won no world titles. Faced Kid Gavilan twice in title bouts losing to the Cuban for the National Boxing Association version of the welterweight title and later for the recognised world title. Beat Sugar Ray Robinson as an amateur and was never knocked down in any of his 126 pro fights, Final career record 102-15-9. 9) Nino LaRocca 57(57-0) Italy, born Mauritania 8 April 1959. Died 14 September 1978.Real name Cheid Tidjani Sidibe. First fight September 1978. He suffered his first loss in February 1984 against Gilles Elbilia in a challenge for the European title. LaRocca lost due to a bad cut. Won 23 of his first 25 fights by KO/TKO. Lost to Donald Curry in a challenge for the IBF and WBA welterweight titles in 1984 but won the European title by beating Kirkland Laing in 1989. He retired in 1990 but twice chained himself to railings in front of public buildings when he was refused permission to fight again in 1998.Final career record 74-6-0. 10) Kid Chocolate 56 (55-0-1) Havana, Cuba. Born 6 January 1910. Died 8 August 1988. Real name Eligio Sardinias Montalvo. First fight October 1927. He suffered his first loss in August 1930 against Jack “Kid” Berg (Berg’s record at the time 81-4-5). There is some doubt over the first two fights on his record which are described as semi-professional but I have included them. Titles: National Boxing Association version of World Junior Lightweight title which was at the time accepted as the world title, New York State Athletic Commission version of World Featherweight, Coloured World Featherweight title. He was 25-0-3 in his final 28 fights before retiring. Final career record 136-10-6. 10 tied) Luis Ramon Campas 56 (56-0) Navojoa, Mexico. “Yori Boy” Born 6 August 1971. First fight July 1987. He suffered his first loss in September 1994 against Felix Trinidad (Trinidad’s record at the time 23-0). World titles: IBF Super Welterweight. Turner pro at 15. He won 50 of those first 56 fights by KO/TKO. Reached the 100 fights milestone in 2012 and continues to be active. Current career record 106-17-3. 10 tied) Lulu Costantino 56 (52-0-4) New York, USA. Born 10 January 1923. Died July 1981. Real name Carlo Joseph Costantino. First fight April 1939. He suffered his first loss in May 1942 against Chalky Wright (Wright’s record at the time 127-31-17). World titles: None. Lost to Wright September 1942 for World Featherweight title. His fight with Tippy Larkin in 1944 was the first time that the judge’s scores were announced along with the decision. Final career record 102-28-6. Also: Others who went 50 or more fights before their first loss but just did not make the cut: Waldemiro Pinto, Brazil 55 (52-0-3),Tom Bogs Denmark 54 (53-0-1,Gustavo Ballas Argentina 54 (53-0-1),Ernie Maurer Scotland/Canada 54 (49-5),Carlos Zarate Mexico 52 (52-0),Pascual Perez Argentina 52 (51-0-1), Tony Licata USA 52 (49-0-3),Del Flanagan USA 52 (51-0-1),Henry Woods USA 51(47-0-4), Chris John Indonesia 51 48-0-3,Jorge Jose Fernandez Argentina 50 (49-0-1), Eder Jofre Brazil 50 (47-0-3) Freddie Pope USA 50 (46-0-4),Hein Domgoergen Germany)50 (46-0-4). Note: Some sources have Ansel Bell (USA) as undefeated in his first 67 fights (55-0-12) and others at 42 (35-0-7) so he is either No 5 to which I give most credence or not in the top 20. C Fighters with the longest unbeaten run at any time in their career top 20: 1) Jimmy Wilde 95 at the start of his career. Final career record 139-4-1.See Section B entry above. 2) Pedro Carrasco, 93 (92-0-1) Alosno, Spain. Born 11 July 1943. Died 27 January 2001. From the time of his losing to Aldo Pravisiani in March 1964 when Carrasco’s record fell to 11-1-1 until he lost his WBC lightweight title to Mando Ramos in February 1972 he was undefeated in 93 fights including a run of 83 consecutive wins. He became the second Spaniard to hold a world title when he beat Ramos in 1971 when on the canvas with Ramos being disqualified for an illegal punch. His final career record was 106-3-2. 3) Ray Robinson, USA: 91 (89-0-2) Born Georgia, USA. Born 3 May 1921. Died 12 April 1989. Real name Walker Smith Jr. From the time of his losing to Jake LaMotta in February 1943 when his record fell to 40-1 until he lost his World Middleweight title to Randy Turpin in July 1951 he was undefeated in 91 fights. The Turpin fight was his seventh in a two month tour of European rings. He was eventually 4-1 in a series of fights with LaMotta and beat Turpin in a return fight. From turning pro until his defeat against Turpin Robinson had lost only once, to LaMotta, in 132 fights. He scored 109 wins by KO/TKO. Final career record 174-19-6, 2 ND. 4) Julio Cesar Chavez 90 at the start of his career. Final career record 107-6-2. See Section B entry above 5) Carlos Monzon 80 (71-0-9) San Javier, Argentina. Born 7 August 1942. Died 8 January 1995.From when he lost to Alberto Massi in October 1964 when his record fell to 16-3 until he retired in July 1977 he was undefeated with 71 wins and 9 draws. He was 73-6-8 in 87 amateur fights. He had a darker side requiring surgery after one wife shot him in the leg and he was imprisoned for homicide over the death of another wife. He died in a car accident whilst on furlough from prison. He made 14 title defences. His final career record was 87-3-9 6) Jamie Gine 76 at the start of his career. Final career record 90-9-16. See Section B entry above 7) Willie Pep 73 (72-0-1)From March 1943 when he lost to Sammy Angott when his record was 61-1 until he lost his world featherweight title to Sandy Saddler in October 1948 he was unbeaten in 73 fights. See No 16 in Section B above which covers his 62 bout winning run from the start of his career which gives Pep an amazing achievement of only one loss in his first 136 fights. 8) Dulio Loi 72 (67-0-5) Trieste, Italy: Born 29 April 1929. Died 20 January 2008.From August 1952 when he lost to Jorgen Johansen when his record fell to 35-1-2 until June 1960 when he lost to Carlos Ortiz in a challenge for the World Lightweight title he was undefeated in 72 fights. He beat Ortiz in May 1961 to win the title. Final career record was 115-3-8. 9 ) Hal Bagwell 68 (63-0-5) Gloucester, England: Born 18 December 1920. Died 9 May 2001. From August 1938 when he lost to Johnny King when his record fell to 30-1-3 until November 1948 when he lost to Morry Jones he was unbeaten in 68 fights. Some sources credited Bagwell with an unbeaten run of 180 fights but Bagwell distanced himself from such a claim. He had his first professional fight in February 1935 and his last in December 1949 and whilst 180 fights might seem possible at a stretch over those fifteen years between July 1939 and March 1946 he had only one fight as he served in the Armed Forces and was at both Dunkirk and Tobruk (as was my father) and the figure of 68 fights unbeaten is generally accepted as accurate. Final career record 100-5-8 but he only ever fought for an Area title and never the British title. 9 tied) Gustavo Scholz 68 at the start of his career. See Section B above. Final career record 88-2-6 11) Nino Benvenuti 65 at the start of his career. See Section B above. Final career record 82-7-1. 12) Willie Pep 62 at the start of his career. See Section B above. Final carer record 229-11-1. 12 tied) Salvatore Burruni 62 Alghero, Italy. Bon 11 April 1933. Died 30 March 2004. From March 1960 when he lost to Albert Younsi when his record fell to 19-3-1 until August 1965 when he lost to Horacio Accavallo after 62 consecutive wins. As an amateur he was twice World Military Champion and competed at the 1956 Olympic Games. Final career record 99-9-1. 14) Ruben Olivares 62 at the start of his career. See Section B above, Final career record 89-13-3. 15 ) Bruno Arcari 61(60-0-1) Atina, Italy. Born 1 January 1942. From August 1966 when he lost to Massimo Consolati and his record fell to 10-2 until he retired in July 1978 including 57 consecutive wins before a draw with Rocky Mattioli in April 1976. He lost on a cut in his first bout in the 1964 Olympic Games and also lost on a cut in his first professional fight. He won the European Super Lightweight title in 1968 and the WBC Super Light title in 1970 and made nine defences of the WBC title before relinquishing it in 1974. 16) Billy Graham 58 (52-0-6) New York, USA. At the start of his career. See No 8 in Section B above. 17) Nicolino Locche 57 (54-0-3) Tunyan, Argentina. Born 2 September 1939. Died 7 September 2005. From November 1964 when he lost to Abel Laudonio and his record fell to 52-2-11 until he lost his WBA super light title to Alfonso Frazer in March 1972. Previously Locche had an unbeaten run of 55 fights (45-0-10) between losing to Vicente Derado in November 1959 until his loss to Laudonio so lost just once in those 112 fights. He won the WBC Super Lightweight title in 1968 in his 106th fight and defended it six times. Known as “The Untouchable” for his defensive skills he was also known to occasionally take a puff at a cigarette in his corner during fights. Final career record 117-4-14. 18) Young Stribling 56 (55-0-1) Georgia, USA. Born 26 December 1904. Died 3 October 1933.From May1927 when he lost to Tommy Loughran and his record fell to 159-10-6 until he lost in a heavyweight title eliminator against Jack Sharkey in February 1929. He was a multi-talented individual. His level of activity was exceptional. As an example he had 35 fights in 1925 and 39 in 1928. He turned pro at 16 and was just 28 when he died as a result of injuries sustained in a vehicle accident so he crammed 253 fights into twelve years. He lost only once by KO/TKO and that was in a fight for the NABA heavyweight title against Max Schmeling with the fight being stopped just 14 seconds before the final bell. Fought a draw with Mike McTigue for the world light heavyweight title in 1923. Stribling was initially declared the winner so was world champion for one hour before the referee changed his decision to a draw saying that his original decision was made under duress. Lost to Paul Berlenbach for the world light heavyweight title in 1926In his first year as a pro he won the Georgia State title as a featherweight and fought in every division up to including heavyweight which would be an eleven division span these days. Scored 129 wins by KO/TKO Career record 224-13-14,2No Decisions 18 tied) Maxie Docusen 56 (54-0-2) New Orleans, USA. Born 15 November 1928. Died 27 November 1944. From September 1945 when he lost to Beau Davis when his record fell to 11-1-1 until he lost to Guillermo Gimenez in January 1950. He never fought for a title but was a huge favourite at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles where he fought 20 times during his unbeaten run. He was of Filipino/American stock and his brother Bernard challenged Sugar Ray Robinson for the welterweight title in 1948. Both Maxie and Bernard were prevented from fighting in some States because they were registered as “ coloured” (African American) but in 1949 a judge ruled they were “half white” which erased that restriction. Career record 76-6-3. 18 tied) Pongsaklek Wonjongkam 56 (56-0) Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. From July 1996 when he lost to Jerry Pahayahay and his record fell to 9-2 until July 2007 when he lost his WBC flyweight title to Daisuke Naito he scored 56 consecutive wins. His loss to Naito came in his eighteenth title defence. He regained the title by beating Naito in 2008. Career record 90-5-2. Others who did not make the cut: Freddie Miller (USA) 54, Jose Legra (Cuba) 54, Pedro Montanez (Puerto Rico) 52, Harry Matthews (USA) 52, Ricardo Lopez (Mexico) 52,Carlos Zarate (Mexico), 52,Del Flanagan (USA) 52,Freddie Russo (USA) 51,Tiberio Mitri (Italy) 51, Tony Licata (USA) 51, Notes: I have ignored No Decisions and newspapers decisions. Some sources credit Packey McFarland as having an unbeaten run of 97 fights but BoxRec shows him as 70-0-5 but then on the alphabetical page shows him as 106-1-6 which may reflect No Decisions and newspapers decisions. His Hall of Fame entry shows him as 105-1-6 and I don’t feel confident enough to know where to put him in this list and there is similar confusion regarding the record of Ad Wolgast. D) Fighters who are currently unbeaten and could fight their way into list A, B or C: 1) Wanheng 49 (49-0) Maha Sarakhan, Thailand. Born 27 October 1985-32yo.Real name Chayaphon Moonsri. WBC Minimumweight Champion. Eight title defences. Seems certain to enter the A) top list if he retires undefeated and could be as high as No 2. Needs another seven wins to get on to the B) and C) lists. 2) Deontay Wilder 39 (39-0) Tuscaloosa, USA. Born 22 October 1985-32yo. WBC Heavyweight Champion. Six title defences. Thirty-eight wins by KO/TKO. To get on the A) list and replace Joe Calzaghe he will have to get through another eight fights undefeated before retiring. Can’t see him wanting to hand around for another 17 fights to get on the B) and C) lists. 3) Gennady Golovkin 38 (37-0-1) Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Born 8 April 1982-35yo. IBF, WBA and WBC Middleweight Champion. Three defences IBF title, ten defences of WBA Secondary title, nine defences full WBA title, three defences of interim WBC title, three defences full WBC title. Thirty-three wins by KO/TKO. To get on the A) list and replace Calzaghe he will need to stay unbeaten through nine more fights and no way will he want to still be fighting for another 18 fights to get on the B) and C) lists. 3 tied) Teerachai 38 (38-0) Born Buriram, Thailand. Born 21 March 1992-25yo. Real name Tewa Kiram. PABA Welterweight Champion. Six defences of interim PABA title twenty-six defences of full PABA title. Fights Lucas Matthysse for vacant secondary WBA welterweight title on 27 January. Young enough to fight for another ten years but as yet untested. 5) Mikey Garcia 37 (37-0) Ventura, USA. Real name Miguel Angel Garcia. Born 15 December 1987-30yo. Former WBO featherweight champion who lost the title on the scales in what was to be his first defence. Former WBO Super Featherweight Champion made one defence then vacated the title. Currently WBC Lightweight Champion. Challenges Sergey Lipinets for the IBF Super Lightweight title on 10 February. Questionable whether he will want to hang around for another ten fights to make the A) list but could do. 6) Gilberto Ramirez 36 (36-0) Mazatlan, Mexico. Born 19 June 1991-26yo. WBO Super Middleweight Champion. Two defences. Defends the title against Habib Ahmed on 3 February. Has the ability and the time to make the lists but with just one fight in 2016 and two in 2017 his activity level would need to increase considerably. 6 tied) Emiliano Marsili 36 (35-0-1) Civitavecchia, Italy. Born 11 August 1976-41yo. Former undefeated Italian and European Lightweight Champion. Won his last 24 fights. Age against him breaking into any of the lists. 8 ) Terry Flanagan 33 (33-0) Lancashire, England. Born 11 June 1989-28yo. Former undefeated WBO lightweight Champion. Made five title defences before relinquishing the title in October 2017. Need 13 wins to get into the lists but at an average of 3 to 4 fights a year may not hang around long enough. 9) Terrence Crawford 32 (32-0) Omaha, USA. Born 28 September 1987-30yo. Former undefeated WBO lightweight Champion made two defences. WBO Super Lightweight Champion made six defences. WBC Super Lightweight Champion made three defences. Won IBF and WBA Super Lightweight titles with victory over Julius Indongo August 2017 but relinquished the IBF and WBA titles without making a defence and also vacated the WBO title. Has the ability but at a level of 2-3 fights a year has a long way to go. 10) Konstantin Ponomarev 32 (32-0) Miass, Russia. Born 17 October 1992-25yo. Former undefeated NABF welterweight champion. Has wins over some useful but not top level fighters. Is young enough to build a long unbeaten run but we won’t know his full potential until he faces stiffer opposition and again with only two or three fights a year will struggle to get into the A),B) or C) lists. Summary According to BoxRec there are approximately 21, 000 active professional boxers in the world and whilst that seems plenty the level of activity is miles away from that of the last century. Back in the early 1900’s to late 1950’s there was a different level of motive and opportunity. Events such as two world wars and economic depression meant that for much of that time even the “affluent” world saw hardship and financial necessity pushing people into boxing. The rewards were low but that also meant that boxing shows were not expensive entertainment. Promoting as often as possible and paying as little as possible was the strategy and that in turn presented the need and the opportunity for boxers at all levels to fight often. Today it is almost unheard off for a world rated fighter to fight ten times in a year but when Sugar Ray Robinson won the world title in December 1948 he won it in his 16th fight of that year. He continued a high level of activity such that when he lost his middleweight title to Randy Turpin it was in his seventh fight in two months. We will never see that level of activity again and certainly not the level shown in Young Stribling’s career but there are still thousands of young men and women out there who will come to see boxing as a way out of poverty and hardship and there will always be the lure of money and fame but these can be achieved in less than twenty fights rather than the 105 it took Nicolino Locche to get to a world title. Times have changed. I have drawn from many sources in putting these lists together and I will be amazed if there are no errors or omissions. Any error or omission is down to me and not to that dedicated body of boxing enthusiasts who spend hours in libraries in well known and obscure places scouring newspapers and other sources to try to establish the complete records of boxers from the past. I beg their forgiveness’ for attempting the above and salute them for their dedication. By Eric Armit
The retirement of Miguel Cotto sees one of the modern greats move to the wings leaving a secure legacy behind him. His achievement have been outstanding, They started 20 years ago with a gold medal at the Pan American Championships in 1997 and in 2004 he won his first world title, the WBO light welter crown. Since then has gone on and on with the WBA welter title in 2006, the WBO welter title in 2009, the WBA super welter title in 2010, the WBC middle title in 2014 and the WBO super welter title in 2017. Six world title in four different divisions. He is 20-6 in world title fights and 16-5 against former, current and future champions. He lost only twice inside the distance to Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao. In the fight after his loss to Margarito was found using a substance to harden his hand bandages and there has to be a high probability that Margarito use the same dangerous material when stopping Cotto. Yes he lost his last fight but it seems likely that was influenced by a bicep injury suffered in the seventh round. He had won rounds six, seven and eight on all three cards but after that his work rate dropped dramatically; he rarely used his left arm and lost all of the remaining rounds on all three cards. Hopefully he won’t feel he needs to have one more fight to try to end on a winning note. He does not need to do that his legacy is already written in stone-and he never ducked anyone. He has his other life as a promoter so let’s hope that keeps him busy. The last decade saw the “Four Kings” Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Marvin Hagler and Roberto Duran. This decade has given us Cotto, Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao. Being around at the same time has helped each of them to establish their greatness. Do we have a fourth? Juan Manuel Marquez perhaps, a seven-time champion across four divisions being 1-2-1 in four fights with Manny Pacquiao but a loser against Mayweather is a good candidate. There’s Tim Bradley who was 1-2 against Pacquiao and beat Marquez. His title defence against Ruslan Provodnikov was voted Fight of the Year by Ring Magazine, the Boxing Writers Association of America and Sports Illustrated. Shane Mosley a five-time world champion across four divisions but he did not beat any of the other three “Kings” and lost to Cotto, Mayweather and Pacquiao. I also have severe reservations over Mosley regard to the BACO scandal. You choose. Heavyweights very much in the news with Tony Bellew vs. David Haye on and Anthony Joshua vs. Joseph Parker near to confirmation. Bellew vs. Haye will be on 5 May at the O2 arena in London but no venue yet for Joshua vs. Parker. If Joshua wins he will turn the clock back to when Wlad Klitschko simultaneously held the IBF, WBA and WBO titles. It would be a massive fight if Joshua won and went on to fight Deontay Wilder which would give us a universally recognised champion. There have been universally recognised champions in the past but since the WBO title was introduced in 1989. no heavyweight has ever held the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO titles simultaneously The International Hall of Fame Class of 2018 has been announced and it includes Vitali Klitschko, Eric Morales and Ronald Wright in the Modern category fighters and German promoter Klaus-Peter Kohl and broadcasters Steve Albert and Jim Gray in the Non-participants and Observers categories. Every fight fan should visit the Hall at least once. I remember finishing a conversation with Ruben Olivares (through an interpreter) and when I looked around there were the now sorely missed Alexis Arguello and Aaron Pryor with another much missed Angelo Dundee sitting signing copies of his book. A fans fantasy land Once again the sport shows that it is incapable of dealing strongly enough with boxers giving positive tests. Luis Ortiz tested positive for a banned substance for the second time. The WBA removed him from their ratings. The WBC had Ortiz medical background examined in detail and declared “The WBC Board of Governors hereby ratifies the Prior Ruling’s finding that Mr. Ortiz` failure to disclose his ingestion of prescribed high blood medication constitutes a violation of the WBC CBP Protocol, and confirms the $25,000 USD fine.” So Ortiz was taking medicine to deal with high blood pressure. The VADA, the WBC’s partners in the testing States in its Eligibility, Requirements, and Results Management Policy Section IIB” It is each athlete’s personal duty to ensure that no prohibited substance enters his or her body. Athletes are responsible for any prohibited substance or its metabolites or markers found to be present in their biological samples. Accordingly, it is not necessary that intent, fault, negligence or knowing use on the Athlete’s part be demonstrated in order to establish a doping violation”. On that basis failing to declare he was taking the medicine is the offence the WBC have addressed. The far more important doping violation is one they have failed to address. They have failed to act in accordance with the VADA Policy and Ortiz has been allowed to slip out from under with a slap on the wrist. Ortiz fights on Saturday so he will get his $25,000 back and remains in line for a million dollar plus purse for fighting Deontay Wilder or Anthony Joshua. The only approach that will work is stringent testing and a zero tolerance stance based on Section IIB. The WBC have clashed with HBO over the Orlando Salido vs. Miguel Roman fight with the WBC having agreed it as a fight for the vacant WBC interim super feather title and HBO saying for their schedule they want it to be over ten rounds. Rightly the WBC refused to sanction a ten round “world” title fight so the fight still goes ahead with HBO but as a ten round non-title fight. This is the real world where he who pays the piper calls the tune so HBO get their way. The puzzle now is what happens to the WBC interim title. They can’t give any recognition to the winner so will have to sort out another interim title pairing but it shows that in a money vs. title (particularly an interim title) money wins all the way. No sooner had Germany finished celebrating that in Manuel Charr they had their first world heavyweight champion since Max Schmelling beat Joe Louis in 1938 than the embarrassment kicked in. Turns out that the Syrian-born Charr does not have a German passport and is not yet a German citizen oops! The undercard to the 13 December WBO title fight between Jeff Horn and Gary Corcoran is naturally going to have a very Australian flavour. Rohan Murdoch (20-1), Nathaniel May (18-1), former world heavyweight title challenger Alex Leapai (OK he was born in Samoa but let’s not worry about that), former IBF champion Leonardo Zappavigna and Paul Fleming (24-0) and Shannon O’Connell will all be facing imported fighters. Despite all of the publicity surrounding Horn’s victory over Manny Pacquiao boxing is still not a very high profile sport in Australia. Finding fight reports even in leading papers can be hard and in many big newspapers boxing can be found only after slogging through cricket, Australian Rules football, rugby, horse racing, netball etc. Good to see the dates being rolled out for the cruiserweight semi-finals of the WBSS tournament. On 27 January Mairis Breidis will have home advantage in Riga against the tournament favourite Alek Usyk but don’t rule out a Briedis win. The other semi-final will be in Sochi Russian on 3 February where Murat Gassiev will be the one with home advantage against Cuban Yunier Dorticos. I expect a Usyk vs. Gassiev final. With Dorticos being Cuban he will have to wait awhile before he ever has the chance of a home fight but it can only be a matter of time before professional boxing returns to Cuba. So sad to read of former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe in such dire straits. He has been declared bankrupt a couple of times and has now published an appeal for money as he is in danger of losing his home. He needs to find $100,000 but has already sold all of his boxing trophies to get out of previous financial difficulties There are plenty of trainer to teach you to box but very few people to teach you how to look after your money and the number of your friends often decreases in direct proportion to your declining finances. There are some out there who try to help such as the Retired Boxers Foundation led by Alex Ramos but Bowe is in too deep for even their help. Better news for another heavyweight champion as filming has begun about the life of former WBA champion Gerrie Coetzee. The South African recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hollywood and African Prestigious Awards in California. It is claimed the Denzel Washington will be in the film-but not playing Coetzee naturally. Coetzee actually had the last fight of his career in Hollywood in 1997 when he lost to Iran Barkley. Former IBF super feather champion Steve Forbes is running his initial show in Portland, Oregon on Sunday. It will be the first show in Portland for more than twelve years and Steve is hoping it will be the first in a series of shows. I have good friend Fred Ryan who runs a great gym in Portland Steve if you are looking for quality fighters. No charge for the plug Fred! I see that Eleider Alvarez has accepted step-aside money so that Adonis Stevenson can defend his WBA light heavy title against Badou Jack. Step-aside money used to be a regular feature in the fight game. The classic case concerned Tim Witherspoon, Tony Tubbs and Frank Bruno. Witherspoon had beaten Tubbs for the WBA heavyweight title in a fight that was so bad no one was even faintly interested in putting it on but the WBA had mandated a return. Meanwhile Mickey Duff was trying to get Bruno a fight for the title. Allegedly Don Kin went to Tubbs and told him he would get next to nothing for the Witherspoon return as nobody wanted it but that he could get Tubbs some step aside money and quoted him a figure. Let’s say $A dollars. He then went to Witherspoon and told him that fighting Tubbs would be a financial disaster but that he could get a big purse for fighting Bruno. However Tubbs was insisting on $ A x 2 to stand aside. He then went to Duff and told him he could get the Witherspoon fight but that Tubbs wanted $A x 3 to stand aside. Duff agreed and King got $A x 5 and gave Tubbs $A. Zab Judah is in the picture again. The former three-division world champion is working in partnership with a Western Canadian boxing promotional outfit DEKADA. Judah will fight on their first show in Calgary on 27 January with the Grey Eagle Resort and Casino hosting what they hope will be the first of a series of shows. By Eric Armit
Between Tyson Fury, Tony Bellew, David Haye and all of the challenges thrown out by Joseph Parker and Deontay Wilder they have kept the heavyweights in the news. It seems certain that subject to a hearing next month and to assurances that Fury’s past medical problems have been resolved Fury will return to the ring next year. Fury will need a couple of fights before he is ready for Anthony Joshua or Deontay Wilder-although Fury’s team may disagree, but a Joshua vs. Fury fight would be huge if Fury can get a couple of wins. A recent poll indicated that the fight some fans want to see when Fury returns to the ring is Fury vs. Shannon Briggs. That’s a 45-year-old who has twice been suspended for positive tests and since losing to Vitali Klitschko in 2010 has not fought anyone who would qualify for a place in the top 50 heavyweights. I guess there is no accounting for taste. David Price may be vulnerable but he seems a better choice. I may not be in the majority but I feel sorry for both David Haye and Tony Bellew. Haye must despair of these injuries. He needed that return fight with Bellew to get into the running for one last chance at another world title shot and Bellew has lost another good payday. Time is not on Haye’s side. He needs to be in 100% condition but how hard can he push himself in training knowing that he is injury prone. Heavyweight action will see Alex Dimitrenko return to the ring in Hamburg on 22 December. No opponent named yet. The 6’7” (201cm) Ukrainian has a 40-3 record with the losses to Eddie Chambers, Kubrat Pulev and Joseph Parker. Winning the IBF International title in his kayo of Adrian Granat has landed him a No 8 position in the IBF ratings so he is in the picture but very much in the background. Swedish hope Granat will also be on the bill against Georgian Iraqi Gvenetadze as he rebuilds after the loss to Dimitrenko. Unbeaten German super welter Sebastian Formella (16-0) will also be on the show. Here’s one heavyweight fight to miss. Alex Ustinov and Manuel Charr meet for the vacant secondary WBA heavyweight title on Saturday in Oberhausen. That’s a 40-year-old Ustinov who has had only one fight in almost two years and that against a guy ranked No 247 in the world and Charr who was knocked out by cruiser Mairis Breidis then had eight months out after being shot four times and has not had a fight for 14 months. Secondary just does not fit the bill. How about farcical, or ludicrous? The WBA farcical title that seems to fit the bill. Heavyweights Andy Ruiz, Robert Helenius and Tony Yoka have also been in the news. Ruiz will return to the ring on February 3 next year. No opponent named for him. The main event will see Gilberto Ramirez making the third defence of his WBO super middle title against Ghanaian Habib Ahmed. What a pity Ramirez is not in the WBSS tournament. His is the only big name that was missing from the super middles section. Ruiz has been out of the ring since losing a majority decision to Joseph Parker for the vacant WBO heavy title in December. Things have passed him by in that time and he is now down at No 15 with the WBO. A poor reward for taking Parker to a majority decision in Parker’s back yard. He deserves a return. He is No 4 with the WBC. Helenius is not retiring despite his loss to Dillian Whyte in October. The Finn has said that his performance against Whyte was badly affected by a bout of flu during his preparation and is determined to fight on. Anything Yoka does is big news in France. The Rio gold medal winner fights again on 12 December against Belgian champion Ali Baghouz. A very strange choice as Baghouz was knocked out in one round by Martin Bakole Ilunga in Edinburgh on 11 November. As late as yesterday Baghouz was still the name in the frame even though it will be just five weeks since that crushing loss. It makes you wonder how much confidence Yoka’ s team have in him and why a major French TV channel should agree to show such a poor match. Yoka is the draw but also on the bill will be Rio bronze medallist Souleymane Cissokho who captained the French boxing team in Rio, unbeaten Nordine Oubaali and unbeaten Cape Verde-born southpaw Michel Tavares. Well we now have the date and venue for the George Groves vs. Chris Eubank Jr WBSS semi-final. On 17 February in Manchester these two will meet in a clash that might not have happened if it was not for the incentives in the WBSS rewards cupboard and it is one where it is hard to pick a winner. No date or venue yet for Callum Smith vs. Juergen Brahmer but let’s hope it is not held in Germany. No dates or venue yet for the Murat Gassiev vs. Yunier Dorticos and Olek Usyk vs. Mairis Breidis fights. Usyk is the favourite for the tournament but Briedis has shown in wins over Olan Durodola, Manuel Charr, Marco Huck and Mike Perez that he is a very live outsider. In addition to these fights for next year it looks like 5 May in Las Vegas for Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul Alvarez II The first one did not live up to expectations so let’s hope this time they get it right and make it a fight to remember unlike the last which was a fight to forget. Obviously the winner of the 16 December Billy Joe Saunders vs. David Lemieux fight will be hoping for a shot at the winner of Golovkin vs. Alvarez but with that fight not happening until May and with Daniel Jacobs, Jermall Charlo, Ryota Murata and Sergiy Derevyanchenko (IBF No 1) all queuing up nothing is certain in this division The WBC have already paired Charlo against Hugo Centeno for their interim title. If Alvarez wins don’t expect him to accept the WBC title. The WBC seem to have recaptured their appetite for interim titles-you remember that was the title that Jose Sulaiman said was causing too much confusion and they replaced it with the Silver title-and then more silver titles and more silver titles-and kept the interim titles. The interim super feather title will go to either Omar Salido or Miguel Roman who clash of 9 December in Las Vegas. A good fight. It would be nice to see “Mikey” Roman win a title at the third attempt but Salido is a tough nut. Of course we have real biggie on the same night in New York in Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Guillermo Rigondeaux . This will be the first time that two fighters who have both won two Olympic gold medals will fight each other. Both fighters are talented and technically brilliant so I hope we don’t get a tactical chess match. Lomachenko’s WBO super feather title will be the only title on the line and not Rigondeaux’s WBA super bantam title. Rigondeaux has not weighed more than 122lbs for a fight since back in 2009 and he won all of his amateur titles at bantamweight. Lomachenko won both his 2011 World Championships gold medal and his 2012 Olympic gold at lightweight so is naturally the bigger man. I go for Lomachenko but just hope it is a classic. Ghanaian Isaac Dogboe gets his chance at a title at the Bukom Boxing Arena in Accra on 6 January when he faces Cesar Juarez for the interim WBO super bantam title. Dogboe won the English ABA title and represented Ghana at the 2012 Olympics. With home advantage he has a good chance against Juarez who lost on points for this title to Nonito Donaire in 2015 but put himself in line for a shot at champion Jesse Magdaleno with a kayo of unbeaten 26-0 Albert Pagara in July last year. Magdaleno is injured so hence an interim title. The news is not as good for another Ghanaian fighter as Richard Commey’s IBF eliminator against Roman Andreev has fallen through. The respective parties had reportedly come to an agreement that prevented them going to purse bids. However as part of the agreement Andree’s promoter was to deposit $55,000 in an Escrow agreement. That did not happen so now Commey’s team are waiting for the IBF to nominate another fighter to face Commey. When a sanctioning body orders an immediate return for a title fight just remember that they probably have their fingers crossed behind their backs. After Milan Melindo retained the IBF light fly title with a controversial decision over Hekkie Budler the IBF ordered an “Immediate return”. In Scotland we have the double positive really being a negative so if a Scotsman says “Aye that’ll be right” what he is saying is I don’t believe a word you say. So what about Budler’s immediate return. Well Melindo will defend his IBF title in a unification match with WBA champion Ryoichi Taguchi in Japan on 31 December. Budler will get first shot at the winner-provided it is Melindo. If Taguchi wins then the WBA and Taguchi might have other ideas but you can trust the IBF to fight hard to get Budler his promised fight for their title. Aye that’ll be right. The Prizefighter formula is still alive and well. The next Prizefighter style tournament will be in Dublin for middleweights and will be staged in March. Applicants are already coming forward but no official announcement yet. How time flies. On 5 January in Denmark a show is being held to celebrate Mogens Palle’s sixty years of promoting boxing. The main fight is to be Lolenga Mock vs. Dmitri Chudinov. Demark has never had a deep well of boxing talent to draw from but Mogens has continued to find and build Danish and other Scandinavian boxers able to compete at the top level over the whole of those sixty years. I still remember the days of Palle vs. Mickey Duff when there were some classic Danish vs. British clashes. He took fighters such as Ayub Kalule, Tom Bogs, Johnny Bredahl, Jorgen Hansen, Mikkel Kessler and so many others to the tope and brought fighters such as Carlos Monzon, Emile Griffith, and Ken Buchanan to Denmark. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2008. He will be 84 in March but no sign of him leaving the sport. Under the Sergey Kovalev vs. Vyacheslav Shabranskyy fight on Saturday Cuban Sullivan Barrera takes on the awkward Felix Varela. At stake for Barrera here is a proposed fight for the WBA light heavy title against Dmitri Bivol pencilled in for February/March in New York so no slip ups if Barrera is to get his first shot at a world title. His only loss was a points defeat by Andre Ward in March last year. With Kerman Lejarraga’s fight with Jose Del Rio for the Spanish welter title in Bilbao drawing over 11,000 spectators the Basque country is suddenly very interested in boxing. The aim now is to get the 24-0 Lejarraga a fight for the European title against champion Mohamed Mimoune. The date they are looking at for a fight in Bilbao in late March. That March date may not be achievable as Mimoune’s team are already in negotiation with the team of Ahmed El Mousaoui for a title defence. The last time there was a European title fight in Bilbao was 1981 when Tony Sibson outpointed Andoni Amana. Former IBF light champion Eduard Troyanovsky takes the second step on his way back to a title shot when he fights 21-0 Carlos Portillo in Moscow on 17 November. His 40 second blow out by Julius Indongo in December was one of the biggest upsets of 2016. Troyanovsky made a good start in July with a fourth round kayo of former European champion and WBA title challenger Michele Di Rocco. Also on this show Russian heavyweight Sergey Kuzmin faces his first real test against Amir Mansour. By Eric Armit
The heavyweights have been hogging the news a bit lately. We have had the big event on Cardiff where over 70,000 turned out to watch Anthony Joshua beat Carlos Takam and we had the show in New York at the weekend which did boxing no good at all. Both heavyweight fights-Joshua vs. Takam and Deontay Wilder vs. Bermane Stiverne –featured substitutes coming in to challenge champions but there the resemblance ends. Takam put up a good fight and to some extent showed that Joshua is still a work in progress and will have given Joshua some indication of areas in which he can and will need to improve. Stiverne was pathetic but then why should anyone be surprised. He had his 39th birthday on the first of this month, had not had a fight since November 2015 and when he fought Wilder in January 2015 he lost by 9, 11 and 13 points and all he has done since then is get older. In fairness he had been training for a fight with Dominic Breazeale but finished up fighting Wilder with insufficient time to prepare and all of that showed as CompuBox did not register Stiverne landing a single punch in the 2:59 the fight lasted. It was a WBC title fight and Mauricio Sulaiman was in the ring fitting a WBC T-shirt over Wilder’s head to publicise the fact it was WBC when he should have been hiding after such a farce in one of their title fights. It was certainly nothing to take pride in. In their defence they could point to the substitute factor as a reason for such an abysmal title fight but that does not excuse them having Stiverne No 1 in their ratings when he not had a fight for two years. Wilder showed his contempt for Stiverne as an opponent. I don’t like to see a fighter show that degree of contempt but there was a lot of rage in there over the way his career just seems to stumble along from one frustration to the next. Wilder has been a pro for nine years and a champion for almost three years and has yet to have a fight that has created even 10% of the interest, entertainment and drama that the Joshua vs. Wlad Klitschko generated. No wonder he is angry and frustrated. There is talk now of Joshua vs. Joseph Parker but at the same time there is also ongoing negotiations for Parker to defend his WBO title against Lucas Browne although Browne is not currently in the WBO ratings. The Alex Povetkin vs. Christian Hammer is a WBO eliminator so plenty of options there for Parker. In addition with the WBC stating that Povetkin can return to their ratings in January a resurrection of the Wilder vs. Povetkin fight is not impossible. Whilst the WBC have resolved the situation of the positive test for Povetkin the subject of alleged positive tests is still stalking the heavyweights. Tyson Fury is adamant that he is going to return to the ring but it is not clear whether he will be able to do so without that situation being resolved and I am still not clear where the matter rests with regard to Luis Ortiz. Fury is adamant that his test result was due to his unknowingly eating a food that caused the results. Ortiz is claiming it was due to some medication. Luis Nery has also quoted a food was at the root of his test results and the only punishment I can see doled out to Nery is for him to give Shinsuke Yamanaka a return which will result in another big payday for the Mexican. It is difficult to see that as a punishment. All of this undermines the fight against illegal substances. The food explanation has been used before and since it seems to have been accepted in the Nery case will be used more. The WBA have rightly suspended Ortiz and removed him from his their rankings and said he cannot fight for their title until September 2018. To me that is not enough. The minimum suspension for a confirmed positive test should be two years and for a second positive test five years. You will never make any inroads to the use of banned substances unless the chance of being caught is high and the level of punishment is severe. The suspensions by sanctioning bodies are limited in that they don’t administrate boxing in any country and suspension by them does not stop the fighter from boxing only from boxing for a sanctioning body title. A case in point is Erkan Teper who is banned from fighting for the EBU title but is able to box in Germany. It is pointless having a great testing process if you are going to accept these types of explanations. The solution is already out there and is simple. The athlete is 100% responsible for what goes into his system. That’s it. Whatever the athlete drinks eats or sniffs it his responsibility to ensure it is not contaminated. Rant over. There is a phrase being bandied about known as the “The Anthony Joshua Effect”. That Anthony Joshua effect was clearly seen in some recent purses. Whereas Joshua took down somewhere around $20 million and Carlos Takam around $6 ½ million for their fight Wilder’s purse for the Stiverne fight was around $1 ½ million and Stiverne’s around $500,000. In fact when you look at the purses for the undercard in New York which were Shawn Porter $500,000, Adrian Granados $200,000, Dominic Breazeale $250,000 Eric Molina $90, 000, Sergey Lipinets $90,000 and Akihiro Kondo$15,000 Takam received more for fighting Joshua than all of the combined purses for the fighters on the New York show. Joshua gets $20 million for fighting Takam and Wilder $1.5 million for fighting Stiverne-no wonder Wilder wants to fight Joshua. Even if the Wilder vs. Stiverne fight was a farce there is plenty to look forward to. In no particular order there is already a mention of 5 May next year for Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul Alvarez II, we have Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Guillermo Rigondeaux on 9 December we have Leo Santa Cruz and Abner Mares sorting out dates and purses for their return match next year, there is Srisaket vs. Juan Francisco Estrada and Carlos Cuadras vs. Brian Viloria on 24 February in Carson, Anthony Dirrell defending his interim IBF super middle title against Jose Uzcategui 27 January , we have two interesting middleweight fights with Daniel Jacobs taking on unbeaten Luis Arias this weekend and Billy Joe Saunders putting his WBO middle title on the line against Canadian puncher David Lemieux on 16 December, there’s Sergey Kovalev vs. Vyacheslav Shabranskyy for the vacant WBO light heavy title on 25 November, possible a fight in the New Year between Mikey Garcia and Jorge Linares, Jerwin Ancajas going onto the lion’s den in Belfast to defend his IBF super fly title against unbeaten Jamie Conlan on 18 November, on 16 December it is Karo Murat and Dominic Boesel fighting a return of their contest in July when Murat came from behind to stop Boesel in the eleventh round to snap Boesel 24 bout winning record and take the vacant European light heavy title and if that’s not enough we have the WBSS semi-finals at cruiser and super middle early next year. What a wonderful sport. Adonis Stevenson has a defence pencilled in for 17 January in Quebec City. The talk is of a defence against Badou Jack. It looks a very interesting fight but it should not be happening. Jack vacated the secondary WBA light heavy title after beating Nathan Cleverly. Apparently as part of the contract he signed to get the Cleverly fight Jack had to agree to relinquish the title if he won. He did so on the understanding that Mayweather Promotions were lining up a big fight for him. So far so good and that fight with Stevenson will be a bigger fight than Cleverly. Why should it not happen? Well because it screws Eleider Alvarez. He is the WBC No 1 and, in his last two fights, both for the WBC Silver title; he has beaten Lucien Bute and Jean Pascal. How long has he been waiting for his title shot-six months, a year, eighteen months? Well in fact he has been No 1 with the WBC since December 2015 so almost two years. Let’s get out the canapés and champagne to celebrate the fourth anniversary of Stevenson last mandatory defence –yes it was in November 2013. It’s about time Alvarez got what he is owed-a shot at the WBC title. Some interesting fights under the Alex Povetkin vs. Christian Hammer scrap in Ekaterinburg on 15 December will see former IBF feather champion Evgeny Gradovich taking on unbeaten Australian-based Irish southpaw TJ Doheny at super bantam: Doheny is No 3 with the IBF and Gradovich is No 6 so with positions 1 and 2 vacant the winner would be qualify to go top and become the mandatory challenger to Ryosuke Iwasa. Also on the show unbeaten super welter Magomed Kurbanov, the WBA No 6 faces OPBF No 3 Akinori Watanabe. The Manny Pacquiao vs. Jeff Horn fight seems to have brought Australia to the attention of Top Rank. They have Gilberto Ramirez putting his WBO super middle title on the line on 3 February with the name of Ghanaian Habib Ahmed in the frame as a possible challenger and there was a suggestion that on 12 May it could be Australian Rohan Murdoch against Ramirez. There are plenty of good young fighters down there such as the Moloney twins and Jai Opetaia so there may be some long term benefits from Pacquiao vs. Horn particularly as it seems that if Horn gets past Gary Corcoran on 13 December then Top Rank’s Terrence Crawford will be his next challenger. As for Ramirez somewhere in his schedule will have to be the return with Jesse Hart as the WBA put Hart at No 1 at their recent Convention. It was good to see that Antonio Cervantes was honoured at that WBA Convention. The talented Colombian known as “Kid Pambele” had two spells as WBA light welterweight champion. He first won the title in 1972 by beating Alfonso Frazer in Panama and made ten defences losing the title to Wilfredo Benitez in 1976. He regained the title by beating Carlos Gimenez in 1977 and lost the title to Aaron Pryor in his seventh defence in 1980. When he retired in 1983 with a 91-12-3 record he had beaten some of the big names of that time such as Rodolfo Gonzalez, Nicolino Locche, Esteban De Jesus, Hector Thompson, Saoul Mamby and so many more. He was 18-3 in 21 title fights and only four of those fights were held in Colombia. A true ring great who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1998. Zolani Tete is another fighter getting some well deserved recognition. The former IBF super fly and current WBA interim bantam champion is on the list of candidates for the title Sports Star of the Year at the South African Sports Awards on 12 November. There is no guarantee that “Last Born” (a hint from his mum to his dad) will win but he is the first boxer to ever be on the list which is in itself and indication of the regard the talented little South African enjoys in his own country. It is not just a South African boxer getting a sign of his emergent status. Trainer Colin Nathan’s excellent work was acknowledged by the WBC’s request that he conduct a five-day seminar for trainers in Shanghai. Recognition of the success hard work has brought for Nathan who has trained seven world champions and six South African champions and more to come. A bit of self indulgence here. I campaigned long and fairly successfully to have the so called WBA “regular” title referred to as their “secondary” title. I see lots of people using that term now. My other beef was over the use of No Contest which to me was totally wrong since what actually transpired was a No Decision. I thought I was that voice crying in the wilderness (Ok a bit over dramatic there) but BoxRec showed the result for the Jamie McDonnell vs. Liborio Solis fight as a No Decision and for me BoxRec is the arbitrator for such things. I just hope it was not a slip of the index finger, C is just above D on the keyboard, and others will follow suit. Next beef-about this glove wrapping tape that even came adrift in the Joshua vs. Takam fight when is someone going to solve that problem. Ah yet again a voice crying in the wilderness! Every fight for Hong Kong’s star fighter super fly Rex Tso has been a battle of attrition with Tso willing to take to give. That seems to have caught up with him as Tso has been advised by doctors to take a six month break although the likelihood is that he will sit things out for longer than that. He is No 2 with the WBO but a battle of attrition with “Monster” Naoya Inoue is the last thing he needs so the rest is probably a good idea. The death of any boxer involved in boxing activity is a tragedy but particularly when they are only 20-years-old. Philippines boxer Jeffrey Claro fell into a coma and died after a sparring session. In Claro’s case there are worrying elements. Claro was one of around 150 Filipino boxers who were banned in August after falsifying the results of brain scans. It seems that the boxers could not afford to have the tests done so they submitted false CT scan results. The Games and Amusements Board (GAB) who administer boxing in the Philippines are a well organised efficient outfit and they detected the false results and banned the boxers involved. Claro had genuine tests carried out and submitted the results and the GAB reviewed them and found them acceptable with no trace of any injury. After his death examination revealed that Claro had a fresh injury probably caused during the sparring session and an older injury almost certainly caused in another sparring session that occurred after he had submitted his new scans. It is a sorry state that the boxers put their lives at risk because they could not afford the cost of the scans and seemingly nor was there any financial help available to cover those costs. It’s a fact that administrative bodies have a hard enough time monitoring fights and can’t monitor all of what goes on in gyms Such a tragedy. So you fancy promoting a show in a nice small town in Louisiana. A picnic. Three days to fight time all going well-and then. One fighter calls off because he sliced a cut on his hand. Another calls off because he got arrested, and another just did not arrive. On the day of the weight in there is supposed to be a female fighter from Kazakhstan but she spent three days in airports and caught an infection so the doctor rules her out. With all of the above there is still one fighter without an opponent and if you can’t find someone for him you will not meet the minimum rounds requirement for the show. All you have to do is to find someone immediately available who has all of his paper work for all of the HIV tests and Hepatitis B & C test. One is found in Arkansas and he saves the show by working until 11.00am on the day of the fight and then driving six hours straight to get to the weigh and somehow you have show. Easy peasy my friend Bad Chad-fancy doing another one next week? By Eric Armit
So far so very good for the WSSB. The fights they have presented so far were either outstanding or ones that whilst not producing a great fight have been interesting on paper. They have also been smart in realising there are some good fights to be had at cruiser and super middle and as they progress through the tournament the fights will get tougher and tougher. It is lucky that the WSSB did not decide to include a heavyweight tournament as the division is once again in a mess. No blame attached to Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder and only on a small question against New Zealander Joseph Parker for just squeezing past Hughie Fury but at least he had the courage to take his fighter into the other guy’s territory and deserves praise for that. After that it gets very messy. There are positive tests allegations hanging over Alex Povetkin, Luis Ortiz and both Tyson Fury and Hughie Fury. On 4 November Wilder is going to fight Bermane Stiverne who he beat by 13, 11 and 11 points in May 2015 and who will 39 three days before the fight. Stiverne has had only fight in the 33 months since losing to Wilder and has not had a fight since November 2015 so should not even be in the WBC ratings let alone a ridiculous No 1. Stiverne was due to fight Dominic Breazeale on the 4 November show so the show must go on and he is available. A rubbish match. Alex Povetkin reportedly gave a positive test when due to fight Wilder in May 2016 and then Pole Andrzej Wawrzyk who was to be the next challenger to Wilder also gave a positive test. With that history it was a risk nominating Ortiz as a challenger to Wilder and his second positive test probable surprised no one. To muddy the waters even further in a typical move the WBA have said Ortiz will remain No 1 in their list but right now, with that second positive test, any thoughts of Ortiz challenge Joshua is another piece of rubbish talk. If that’s not bad enough now the WBA have agreed to Alex Ustinov vs. Manuel Charr for their interim title even though Joshua is defending their title later this month. These are the guys who proudly announced their aim to have just one world champion in each division. More rubbish. Ustinov is the WBA No 2. He will be 41 in December, was outclassed and knocked out by Pulev in 2012 and since then has not fought anyone coming off a win. Since losing to Pulev he has risen from No 11 to No 2 for beating Ivica Perkovic, a 41-year-old David Tua, Chauncey Welliver who had lost his previous two fights inside the distance, Travis Walker who had lost his last six fights, a 39-year-old Maurice Harris who was 1-4-1 in his last 6 fights, Konstantin Airich who had lost 6 of his last 7 fights and Brazilian travelling loser Raphael Zumbano who in his next fight was stopped inside a round by former top amateur Filip Hrgovic. If you think I am being too harsh on the WBA then just consider that Charr was knocked in five rounds by Mairis Breidis and has two plastic hips. Hey that’s the good news they could have nominated Fres Oquendo two whom they have to give a title chance after he won a court case. Oquendo has not fought since July 2014-he is their No 3 above Charr. Come on Fres add to the pain and take out an injunction on them for overlooking you. Somehow rubbish just does not seem a harsh enough word. Povetkin may be under suspension from the WBC but they have no jurisdiction over him. They are a title sanctioning body not a licensing body and when they suspend a fighter the words missing are “from the WBC ratings and WBC title fights” because that’s all they have power over. After all this time the situation with Povetkin’s positive test is still not resolved and it is the same with Tyson and Hughie Fury. Povetkin is fighting Christian Hammer on 15 December and when Tyson Fury said he will not apply for licence from the BBB of C he did not say he was not going to seek a licence from another body such as the Luxemburg Board so let’s keep an eye on that situation. And the WBC are thinking of introducing a super heavyweight division-oh please no! Last word on the heavyweights. For those interested in money Joshua is reportedly getting around $20 million for the Pulev fight and the Bulgarian’s pay will be about $5 million. The estimated total take for the fight could go as high as $40 million. Luckily we have some real quality stuff going on in the other divisions. The Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Guillermo Rigondeaux fight on 9 December is already sold out. It is a great match but styles make fights so there is no guarantee these two will produce a classic. For Lomachenko to win and for the fight to be a classic he has to make Rigondeaux fight his fight but at least the fights we want to see are being made. The next in the WSSB cruiser series will see Murat Gassiev put his IBF title on the line against former WBC champion Krzys Wlodarczyk in Newark on 21 October in another good 50/50 match. It is not only the heavyweights who are dogged by positive tests. There are allegations that Jesus Rojas tested positive for a banned substance after winning the WBA interim title by halting Claudio Marrero last month but very few detail have been released so far on that one. You never know what is around the corner. When Gary Corcoran took a split decision over Larry Ekundayo in July he would never have believed that by 15 December he would be heading for Brisbane and fighting for the WBO title against a fighter who had beaten the great Manny Pacquiao. He had done most of his recent work at super welter but he has his chance. He must start as an outsider but then so did Jeff Horn against Pacquiao. For both of them the potential rewards are huge with a fight against Pacquiao in April being mooted for the winner. No Gary-no one is going to punch you and you won’t wake up to find it is all a dream. Still on Australia despite his best instincts former IBF champion Barry Michael has found himself tempted back into promoting. Barry will be partnering Jake Ellis the son of Lester Ellis-the man Barry beat for the IBF title back in 1985- for a show in Melbourne on 9 December. Jake has been promoting for a few years and Barry is helping Jake train one of his sons Darcy Ellis who had his first pro fight in August winning on a first round knockout. It was a big benefit to Australian boxing to have two such talented fighters as Barry and Lester active at the same time and in the same division. Their 1985 fight was one of the few occasions when it has been Australian vs. Australian for a world title. Barry made three successful defences of his title before losing it to Rocky Lockridge. They did a documentary on Barry and Lester entitled "A Melbourne Story” and there is talk of a film, Just make sure they don’t take artistic licence too far and change the result of the fight Barry. The WBA have elevated Dmitry Bivol to be their champion at light heavy. With their super champion Andre Ward retiring and Badou Jack relinquishing the secondary title there was a gap and that’s how they filled it. Bivol’s 4 November defence against Trent Broadhurst will no longer be for the interim title but for the full title. The winner of Bivol vs. Broadhurst must defend against the highest rated challenger within 120 days. Panamanian Jezreel Corrales will put his WBA super feather title on the line at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino against unbeaten Puerto Rican banger Alberto Machado who is 18-0 with 15 wins by KO/TO. With Jesses Magdaleno injuring a wrist and unable to defend his WBO super bantam title on 21 November in Fresno against No 1Cesar Juarez there is talk that Juarez will fight Filipino Marlon Tapales who is No 2 for the interim title. Tapales management are hoping to get more time to prepare but the show will go ahead with a couple of real quality fights with Artur Beterbiev fighting German Enrico Koelling for the vacant IBF light heavy title and a bout between unbeaten super light fighters Juan Carlos Ramirez 20-0 and Mike Reed 23-0 which should be worth the admission price alone. Miguel Cotto’s last pro fight against Sadam Ali has been confirmed for 2 December in New York. He will be taking on the Brooklyn-born “The World Kid” in his own back yard but should be too experienced and go out with a win-and hopefully stay retired after a great career. There is also talk of Danny Garcia vs. Brandon Rios in New York in December and if it comes off it could be the Last Chance saloon for Rios. Roman Gonzalez has set out his plan for the future. He said that he would probably go after WBA champion Khalid Yafai and then move on to a return with Srisaket. Let’s hope that was just a bad night in Carson in September because he can’t afford to take the unbeaten Yafai lightly. He was talking about having Felix Trinidad Snr. as his trainer but Trinidad has said no. An all-Mexican affair may see Miguel Berchelt defending his WBC super feather title against perennial challenger Orlando Salido on 9 December but no venue yet and confirmation of the fight awaited. The possibility of a fight between Terry Flanagan and Felix Verdejo seems to have disappeared in the mist. Although Verdejo had a fight in February and was No 1 in their August ratings another injury for Verdejo saw the WBO drop him from No 1 to No7 in their September ratings. Ray Beltran will be the beneficiary of that as he moves into the No 1 spot to challenge Ferry Flanagan. Beltran drew with Ricky Burns for the WBO title in 2013, a fight many thought Beltran won. He then challenged Terrence Crawford for the same title in 2014 and has earned his third shot with inside the distance wins over Mason Menard and Jonathan Maicelo and a decision over Bryan Vasquez. So good to see Bruce McTavish honoured with the “Referee of the Year “award by the WBC. New Zealand-born but a long-time resident in the Philippines Bruce was awarded the same honour in 2013 and 2015 and deserves them all. He has refereed more than 1,500 fights including over 100 world title fights. Every bit as important is the philanthropic work Bruce does. He made a huge contribution when President of the local Rotary Club in the fight against polio and continues to do other charity work. Well deserved my old friend. According to Russian sources Denis Lebedev will defend his WBA cruiser title against Fabio Maldonado who has a record of 24 wins by KO/TKO in 25 fights. Looks impressive but the opponents were of the sort who would be honoured to be labelled third class. No date or venue and Maldonado, well known in Russia for his MMA achievements, is not in the WBA ratings-yet. Lebedev is doing some excellent work outside the ring. He is actively involved in the Denis Lebedev Future Generations Foundation which is going to work on the popularisation and development of sport in Russia. Their initial aim is to finance the opening of sports clubs in twenty major cities. The Foundation is not just about sport but also aims to provide support to a variety of disadvantaged individuals. Good to see Lebedev putting his ring earnings to such a good cause as do many other boxers. Two South African boxers are being recognised for their achievements. Former WBA flyweight champion Peter Mathebula received a Lifetime Achievement award. When he beat Tae-Shik Kim in South Korea for the title in 1980 he became the first black boxer to win a world title. The other award will go to Gerrie Coetzee. When the “Boksburg Bombe” beat Michael Dokes in 1983 for the WBA title he became the first South African boxer to win the heavyweight title. Coetzee’s award will be a Sports Lifetime Achievement Award and will be presented in Hollywood at the African Prestigious Awards ceremony next month. There is talk of a film of Coetzee’s life with Denzil Washington in the cast list. It is so good to see George Groves donating money to help his ex-opponent Eduard Gutknecht. There has been a lot of activity in Germany to support Gutknecht’s wife Julia and his three children as a considerable amount of cost will be incurred in ongoing care for Eddy who is still unable to walk or talk. A charity event raised over Euro 50,000. Eddy worked at VW and was a member of the IG Metall works union who contribute a sizeable sum. There was even a “boxing match” where Firat Arslan crossed gloves with the Chairman of Porsche- it ended in a draw! And Gennady Golovkin attended and donated Euro 25,000. Spanish fighter Saul Tejada is in a similar situation to Gutknecht but is a much more low profile case although just as serious. Tejeda suffered an epidural hematoma when being knocked out in a fight in October last year. Tejeda is making progress but it is slow. Again the ongoing care costs will be substantial and there have been a number of money raising events and the WBC made a contribution. Boxing is a dangerous sport and always will be and the boxing community rallies round when help is need and always will do. One of the most frightening things I have seen in many years was a video I watched today involving MMA and not boxing. The video showed a fighter who was so dehydrated he could not walk unaided. Two people helped him to the scales and had to practically lift him on. When he was there they held his elbows until they felt he had enough balance to stand up but remained ready to catch him if he fell. He went through with his fight and lost on points. Thank goodness we are better than that in boxing. Back to the heavyweights for a closing note. We had Vitali Klitschko saying he might think about coming back to get revenge for Wlad by beating Joshua. Please Vitaliy stick to the day job surely being mayor of Kiev keeps you busy enough and anyway your name is there as a candidate for this year’s Hall of Fame election and if you fight before the results are in you will have to wait another five years to qualify for the Hall. Please tell me you were joking. By Eric Armit-
Well Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul Alvarez is history. We got the fight we wanted on paper but for me we did not get it on the canvas. It was an interesting fight at most. No blame associated with Golovkin. He was just a little more cautious than usual but made the fight. Alvarez seemed to want to steal the fight not win it. If Golovkin had not forced the action there would not have been much action. For a known big puncher Alvarez spent more time avoiding trading punches than throwing them. I don’t know what his overall games plan was. At times I thought it was to let the eight years older Golovkin punch himself out and indeed he did mop-up the last three rounds on the cards of all three judges but that just goes to show how little he had done over the first nine rounds. For me Golovkin won the fight clearly but if others saw it differently-even Ms Byrd-that’s OK it is inherent in the way fights are scored. Golovkin came away with his reputation intact. Alvarez is still a great fighter and for sure a future Hall of Fame inductee and he will be in more big fights but for me he turned in a mediocre performance. Hopefully they will fight again and sooner rather than later. We saw how delaying the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Manny Pacquiao fight for too long a time took some of the edge of it and neither fighter was at his peak when they did clash. If you needed an indication of how different boxing is today then you just need to see how easy it was to make fights 60-70 years ago. The then unbeaten Sugar Ray Robinson outpointed Jake LaMotta in October 1942. LaMotta got his revenge with a points win over Robinson in February 1943. They fought again three weeks later when Robinson won. Two of the biggest names in boxing in that era and they fought each other twice in three weeks! So sad to see that the “Ragin Bull has passed. He fought everyone who was anyone in his era. Typically for an incident filled career he won the title in September 1950 when with the fifteenth round starting he was behind on all three cards against Frenchman Laurent Dauthuille but he knocked Dauthuille out just 13 seconds before the final bell in what was the Ring Magazine Fight of the Year. Who did he lose the title to? Well Robison of course. That put Robinson 5-1 up in their series and was the last time they fought each other. LaMotta was an ever present at the Hall of Fame inauguration days and even in his nineties a lively spirited man as befits one of the great fighters of his era. RIP Jake. I was surprised and sorry to read that Andre Ward has decided to retire. He goes out at the top and unbeaten. He scored victories over Mikkel Kessler, Arthur Abraham, Carl Froch, Chad Dawson and Sergey Kovalev twice, in fact all of the big names around in his two spells of competing at the top. Kovalev and Carl Froch were the only ones to get close to victory over the “Son Of God” with three scores of 114-113 giving him a controversial win over Kovalev in their first fight and two of the judges scored for Ward 115-113 when he beat Froch. If he has lost his passion for the sport then he has made the right decision but it is a pity that he took almost two years out when at his peak and I just feel he could have achieved even more but for that break. Good luck Andre-and please stay retired. Ward’s most recent adversary Sergey Kovalev will return to the ring in November in New York with Ukrainian Vyacheslav Shabranskyy in the other corner. Not a bad fight but with Shabranskyy having been down three times and knocked out by Sullivan Barrera in December that takes a bit of the shine off it. We have Joseph Parker vs. Hughie Fury on Saturday night which kicks off a series of heavyweight title fights that will see all four versions of the heavyweight title on the line. Naturally right now an Anthony Joshua fight is the biggest news in the heavyweights and he puts his IBF and WBA titles on the line against Bulgarian Kubrat Pulev in Cardiff on 28 October. Neither fighting in the United Kingdom or facing a British opponent will be new for Pulev as he won a European gold medal in Liverpool and is 3-0 against British fighters but Joshua is naturally the favourite and it will be interesting to see whether he can get Pulev out of there quicker than the five rounds it took Wlad Klitschko to do it. The third in the series is Deontay Wilder vs. Luis Ortiz in New York on 4 November. The Cuban is 38-years-old and the only names on his record are Bryant Jennings and Tony Thompson-neither really stellar quality but it says everything about how Wilder has hand-picked his opponents that this is seen as his sternest test so far. By December it could be all change or as you were but at least the heavyweight division is interesting again. The IBF have ordered negotiations between Tevin Farmer and Kenichi Ogawa for their super feather title. It became vacant when Gervonta Davis failed to make the weight for his defence against Francisco Fonseca last month. Ogawa is No 4 and Farmer No 5. The first two places are vacant because no fighter has beaten a rated fighter so no one can go into those spots. Australian Billy Dib is No 3 but seems to be sidelined but there might be a stipulation for the winner of Ogawa vs. Farmer to defend against Dib. The WBO have refused Zou Shiming’s request for an immediate rematch with Japanese fighter Sho Kimura who lifted the Chinese fighter’s flyweight title with an eleventh round stoppage in July. Instead the WBO have ordered Kimura to defend against Toshiyuki Igarashi. There is some justice there as Igarashi has been their No 1 since March and he was by-passed and the No 6 Kimura was given the title shot. [Ed's note - Igarashi did suffer a notable fracture to his eye earlier this year, delaying his shot at the title] As I write this the second quarter-final in the cruiser ranks of the World Boxing Super Series between Yunier Dorticos and Dmitry Kudryashov will take place in San Antonio tomorrow night. The initial fight between Oleg Usyk and Marco Huck was disappointingly one-sided but this one should be more competitive. Dorticos secondary WBA title will be on the line but with the possible rewards from winning this tournament the WBA trinket is an irrelevance. The Callum Smith vs. Erik Skoglund fight was a good showpiece for the tournament. Although Skoglund fought way beyond my expectations I saw Smith as a clear winner. Not unnaturally Skoglund saw it differently and has claimed that if the fight had been anywhere except Liverpool he would have won. Well he is entitled to his opinion just as Adelaide Byrd is. The Chris Eubank Jr vs. Avni Yildirim figures to be a good fight. Despite his high WBC No 3 rating (IBO champion Eubank is No 4) Yildirim is yet to be in a high profile fight and Eubank is a big step in level of opposition. However the Turkish fighter is a very tough proposition. He is a pressure fighter who will be in Eubank’s face for three minutes of every round so it should be a real war. If either fighter falls out for any reason the first reserve is unbeaten German Stefan Haertel but either Eubank or Yildirim would be a he step up for Haertel Going back to San Antonio Nonito Donaire has his first fight since his loss to Jesse Magdaleno for the WBO title and he takes on Mexican Ruben Garcia for the vacant WBC Silver title at featherweight. It is ten years since Donaire won his first world title and of course he has gone on to be a four division champion. It seems that at 34 there is still plenty of ambition there. Garcia has impressive looking statistics at 22-2-1 but his record has some heavy padding with his last seven victims having combined records of 17-69-2. Curiously for a title which the WBC put so much emphasis on neither Donaire nor Garcia is in their top 40. After giving it some thought Roman Gonzalez has decided to fight on. His crushing loss to Srisaket had him seriously considering retirement but he has said he wants to bring another title back home to Nicaragua. A show is being staged in Paris by the Asloum group as a tribute to young French boxer Angelique Duchemin. The 26-year-old “Princess of the Ring” died during a training session in the gym possibly due to a pulmonary embolism. She won the French and European super feather titles and in May added the WBFederation title. Such a tragedy. The main event will see Karim Guerfi defending his European bantamweight title against Belgian Stephane Jamoye with French lightweight Elhem Mekhaled facing Cindy Bonhiver in a lightweight fight between two French female fighters. There are some other French fighters turning out for this tribute show. Puerto Rico lost one of its finest boxing journalists and public relations experts with the death of Mario Rivera Martino at the age of 94. I grew up reading Mario’s reports in Ring Magazine so he is part of my memories from those days so long ago. He also did a great job as PR consultant to the WBO and wrote for Sports Illustrated but for me he will always be an important part of that era when my interest in boxing started to flourish. Thank you Mario. And RIP. Forty-year-old former cruiserweight champion Tomasz Adamek is going to fight on and is in training for a fight later this year but no opponent named. Boxing is a universal sport embraced by all peoples. However there have been very few Native Americans who have made headlines. There have been a number competing over the years in the US National Championships and the National Golden Gloves but very few in the pros. For that reason it is always good to see a young Native American dipping his toe in the pro ranks. On 16 September on a small show in Oregon State fairgrounds Salem super feather Blaiwas Eaglepipe took a six round decision in his first pro fight. He ended up with a few cuts here are and there due to some headwork from his opponent-welcome to the pro game Eagelpipe! He is a descendant of “Captain Jack” a leader of the Modoc tribe which resisted the US Army for many months in the lava beds of Oregon before being forced to surrender. I will leave young Eaglepipe alone now as he is just starting out and he needs time to develop his career under experienced trainer Fred Ryan away from any undue publicity. I wish him well. A couple of interesting fights coming up in Africa. On 6 October South African Mzuvukile “Old Bones” Magwaca 19-0-3 puts his IBF Inter-Continental bantamweight title on the line against Namibian Immanuel Naidjala 23-3-1in Kimberley South Africa. Magwaca already holds the WBFederation title. In Accra Ghana aging Braimah Kamoko faces young pretender Bastie Samir on 21 October. The 37-year-old Kamoko has never lost a fight but due to serious questions raised over his eye-sight has never fought outside Ghana. This will be his first fight since December 2015. Samir, 26, turned pro in the USA and had his first 11 fights there going 10-0-.1 He then built his record to 15-0-1 but was inactive in 2014 and 2015 and had just one fight in 2016. In world terms this is a non-event but when it was first announced the fans broke down the doors for tickets. There has been plenty of publicity for the fight but Kamoko styling himself the “African Mayweather” is taking things too far. I have left any comments on the scoring at the Golovkin vs. Alvarez fight until the end as it just served to divert some attention away from the fight and I don’t want to do the same. I am not going to pillory Adelaide Byrd. I had it 117-112 for Golovkin so I also disagreed greatly with Byrd’s score but also to a lesser degree with hose tuned in by the other two judges but the social media also shows there are plenty out there who had Alvarez the winner. Byrd has worked as a judge for 443 fights including 107 world title fights across the whole span on the sanctioning bodies. I looked at every one of those 107 fights and struggled to find more than one or two instances where she differed to any significant degree with the other two judges. Just eight days before she officiated at the Golovkin vs. Alvarez fight she worked the fight between David Benavidez and Ronald Gavril for the vacant WBC super middle title. Byrd and Dave Morrell scored it 116-111 and 117-111 respectively for Benavidez. Glen Trowbridge scored it 116-111 for Gavril. There is a huge gap between how Morrell and Trowbridge saw the fight-but no big hullabaloo-hey that’s boxing. On the same night in Cebu City one judge had Milan Melindo winning 117-110 and another had Hekkie Budler winning 115-113 and even on the same Golovkin vs. Alvarez show one judge had Ryan Martin winning 96-93 and another had Francisco Rojo winning 99-91. When you look at Byrd’s score in that context it is just another example of the ridiculous way of scoring boxing matches we are stuck with. Her scorecard was no worse than many others we see every week. She gets pilloried because the event was such a big one and the scoring in the Melindo vs. Budler and Benavidez vs. Gavril hardly merit anything other than a side note. I have said before that if boxing was invented tomorrow there would some form of computerised scoring used. Even that is not perfect for as the saying goes “rubbish in rubbish out” so the accuracy depends on the competence of the operator. CompuBox is already effectively doing that type of computer approach showing punches thrown, punches landed, jabs thrown/landed, power punches thrown/landed but I find myself wonder how many light jabs equal one power punch? One, ten, twenty. Is that written down somewhere and if so who devised the system? So even registering the punches landed is not the end of the complex calculations. I have seen it suggested that punch counting might work but then you need to decided if you are going to add all the punches at the end and see who has landed more in the whole fight or allocate on a round by round basis i.e. 10 points to the guy who landed more in that round . Sounds OK but what if a guy scores one more punch per round for nine rounds and his opponent sores 20 more punches in the last, and does a knockdown just count as one punch? We are stuck with what we have and you can be sure there will be some controversy over scoring in fights this weekend-and for ever more. That’s the bad news on scoring boxing matches-there is no good news. Well it’s over. The elephant in the room that distracted boxing fans for a few weeks and earned a fortune for two millionaires is over and done with. It was a huge event but not a great or even good fight and if you paid to see it then once you boast “I was there” it’s difficult to think of anything else you can say about it. Conor McGregor fought better than most forecast but not much better than could be expected from a man competing in a sport for which he was ill-prepared against one of the great exponents of the that sport. McGregor’s inexperienced showed in the way he flapped and pawed with some of his punches and in how quickly he tired in fighting three minute rounds. Floyd Mayweather fought a smart fight. There is no way McGregor could have anticipated that Mayweather would steal the patented high guard, walk forward and work inside tactics of Arthur Abraham. When the punch stats showed that one fighter had thrown only 20 jabs in the ten rounds- and that it was Mayweather- that was a real shocker. A bit like a foil fencer using a broad axe, but it worked. The hope now is that it is the last of these cross-discipline circuses.
The Nevada Commission was obviously worried that the fight might start before the first bell. They actually had one official standing with his arm outstretched in front of each fighter ready to restrain them as the referee gave his final instructions. Even the commission believed the hype. With that out of the way we can now focus on the real business at hand. The Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul Alvarez fight. It’s a true fans fight a real grudge match promising explosive action with Golovkin having an 89% KO/TKO ratio with 23 wins by KO/TKO in his last 24 fights and Alvarez a respectable 69% with youth and a great chin in a fight where who can take it rather than who can dish it out could be the decider. The ingredients are there for a middleweight version of “Joshua vs. Klitschko” with three of the four versions of the middleweight title on the line. This fight is everything that Mayweather vs. McGregor was not. With WBO champion Joseph Parker defending against Hughie Fury on 23 of September, Anthony Joshua defending his IBF and WBA titles against Kubrat Pulev on 28 October and Deontay Wilder putting his WBC title on the line against Luis Ortiz in New York on 4 November the heavyweight division is heating up. Parker is very much the poor relation in this with his WBO title having lesser value but as with the Wilder vs. Ortiz fight the big prize is a fight with Anthony Joshua if Joshua gets past Pulev-and he should. For the Wilder vs. Ortiz fight to take place stand aside money will have to be paid to the WBC no 1 Bermane Stiverne. The situation with the former champion is ridiculous. He is No 1 with the WBC but has not fight since November 2015. OK it was not his fault that the fight with Alex Povetkin fell through when the Russian tested positive for a banned substance. There is talk of Stiverne vs. Dominic Breazeale but if Stiverne decides not to risk that fight and opts to take the stand aside money and then wait to fight the winner it will be more than two years since he had a fight. That’s almost a silly as the WBA who due to a court ruling still have an obligation to include their No 3 Fres Oquendo in their ratings and in a title fight even though Oquendo has not fought since July 2014. Despite positive sounds from both sides a fight between WBC light heavy champion Adonis Stevenson and Badou Jack, the new holder of the secondary WBA title, is probably dead in the water. Firstly the WBC No 1 Eleider Alvarez has wasted no time in insisting Stevenson has to fight him and the WBC would have to back Alvarez in that. Even if the Stevenson vs. Jack fight did come off it would not be e unification fight as Jack only holds the secondary WBA title and if Stevenson won it would be ludicrous for the holder of the WBC title to be shown only as holder of the secondary WBA title. The WBA have order Jack to defend against their interim champion Dmitry Bivol. By ordering this is it possible the WBA are working towards one “universally recognised “champion in each division. Dream on! They still have nine secondary champions and four interim champions. I was away on a tour of the Cities of Eastern Europe and missed the Terrence Crawford vs. Julius Indongo fight but caught the replay. Indongo had looked very useful in destroying Eduard Troyanovsky and outclassing Ricky Burns but Crawford was another couple of levels above at least. There are some tasty morsels out there if the fights can be put together such as Crawford vs. Errol Spence, Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia or Mikey Garcia. His time as unified champion was short as he had no interest in fighting Sergei Lipinets so he relinquished the IBF title. Lipinets is the IBF No 1 beacuse he has beaten someone who was rated in the IBF top 15 at the time they fought. That was Lenny Zappavigna. A little bit of adjustment was undertaken. Zappavigna was No 7 and Lipinets was No 8 and although neither had had another fight before they met by Zappavigna was No 3 and Lipinets No 4.To again show the questionable positioning of fighters in their ratings behind Lipinets the No 2 spot is vacant and Japanese fighter Akihiro Kondo is No 3. Why is Kondo not No 2? That’s because he can’t be No 2 as he has never fought anyone in the IBF top 15 but somehow qualifies to be No 3! The reason they can’t put him to No 2 is that when Bobby Lee Snr was arrested by the IBF for allegedly selling spots in the IBF ratings one of the rule changes they had to adopt was not to put someone in the mandatory or No 2 position unless they had beaten someone in the top 15. Perhaps we should get the FBI instead of the IBF to do the ratings. I am still proud of the letter that Lee sent to Boxing News complaining strongly about my criticisms of what I saw as blatant manipulation of their ratings by the IBF. He finished the letter by saying “we are watching you”. He should have been watching his Ratings Chairman Doug Beavers who was wearing an FBI wire. Happy days. The WBC are sending out some very mixed signals. They are donating Diamond Belts to the winner of the Super Series at cruiser and super middle so effectively endorsing and supporting the tournament. However despite Callum Smith being their No 1 super middle he has been well and truly shafted. They had ordered a fight between Smith and Anthony Dirrell in September for their vacant title but Dirrell refused to accept the date or the terms effectively ruling himself out. In the meantime Smith had signed to fight Erik Skoglund on 16 September in the quarter-finals of the Super Series. The WBC then tried to set up a Dirrell vs. David Benavidez fight for their title but injury ruled Dirrell out of that. Instead they have agreed that Benavidez fights Ron Gavril for the vacant title. Gavril rose in the WBC ratings from No 27 to No 16 for beating 11-1 Chris Booker and from 16 to No 6 for beating unrated 16-5-1 Decarlo Perez so a very questionable elevation. Now Smith finds himself out of the title picture because he is fighting in the very Super Series that the WBA have endorsed. You can’t endorse a tournament and then penalise people for participating in it that is the worst kind of double speak. Shane Mosley has finally hung up his gloves. He had a great career and as a three division champion who fought in 23 world title fights (excluding a couple of interim title fights) and beat Oscar De La Hoya twice, Fernando Vargas, Antonio Margarito and many others will eventually be a candidate for the Hall of Fame. His legacy will always have a blemish in my eyes after he admitted taking steroids but claimed he did not know what they were. His claim for $12 million against the head man at BALCO the company that supplied him with the substances who alleged on numerous occasions that Mosley knowingly took them was dropped. Richard Schaefer, then with Golden Boy, actually asked if the Nevada Commission could investigate allegations that Mosley was using the BACO supplied steroids at the time of his 2003 win over Oscar De La Hoya and continued to use them until 2005 whether Mosley’s win over De la Hoya could be overturned but was told it could not. There is no way of knowing in which of Mosley’s fights he was using the banned substances. On the subject of the De La Hoya clan cousin Oscar faces a tough test on 16 September when he fights former undefeated IBF champion Randy Caballero. The 23-year-old Diego is 19-0. Caballero seemed poised to become a big name after he beat Stuart Hall for the IBF title in October 2014 but nothing has gone right for him since. He was inactive in 2015 which resulted in the IBF stripping him of the title and had only one fight in 2016. He had a win over WBC title challenger Jesus Ruiz in March so hopefully he is back on track. So sad to read of the death of Frank Quill. The Australian was a huge influence in the Australian National Boxing Federation and a long-time member of the WBC. He was also a good friend and a true gentleman and any time spent with him was a pleasure. I will miss him greatly. Crime report: Some muggers in Argentina picked the wrong victim. Former WBA lightweight champion Raul Balbi was out with his daughters when a couple of villains tried to rob them. Balbi flattened one and chased and caught the other. Less palatable is the news that Argentinian middleweight Amilcar Funes has been arrested for alleged involvement in a botched robbery that led to murder. There seems to be a serious outbreak of retirement disease and it appears to be infectious as Wlad Klitschko, Tim Bradley, Takashi Miura and Takashi Uchiyama have all announced their retirement within the last two weeks and Miguel Cotto has said he will end his career this year. I have this theory that says if you hang around long enough you can eventually become popular (I’m still waiting). Klitschko has dominated heavyweight boxing for 14 years. Effectively after Lennox Lewis retired in 2003 Wlad and brother Vitali reigned supreme. Their dominance made the heavyweight division moribund. Everyone put up against them proved unable to find a way to deal with their clever use of their strengths and to anybody except a Klitschko fan heavyweight title fights were repetitive and boring. To hold that against them was obviously unfair. They were there to win and if they had tactics that ensured them of victory why should they change. Wlad built an amazing record of 25-4 in world title fights with 19 wins by KO/TKO. He was a huge draw in Germany but never really captured the hearts of boxing lovers elsewhere. Tremendous respect-yes-that special bond between a great fighter and the boxing followers-no. As is often the case he finally did win those hearts when losing to Anthony Joshua in the best heavyweight title fight seen for ages. Both Wlad and his brother Vitali have been great ambassadors for boxing in their outside of the ring activities giving millions to charities and involving themselves deeply in the future of their home country of Ukraine. This year it will be more than five years since Vitali retired and that will make him eligible for placing on the ballot paper for the International Boxing Hall of Fame and Wlad will I am sure be on the paper in five years time.
As with Klitschko Tim Bradley has never received the recognition he deserved for his achievements. The little Californian was WBC and WBO super light champion and twice WBO welter champion. He lost only one of 12 world title fights and beat Lamont Peterson, Devon Alexander, Manny Pacquiao, Ruslan Provodnikov, Juan Manuel Marquez, Jessie Vargas and Brandon Rios. His only losses were in the two return matches with Pacquiao. That is a record anyone could be proud of. He may have lacked the spectacular style of some but he worked hard and found a way to win and to some extent overachieving. However, some will never forgive him for the split decision win over Pacquiao. Again he may not have captured the hearts of the fans but he deserves more recognition and respect than he gets. Best of luck in the future Tim. Miura and Uchiyama clashed in 2011 in a WBA super feather title fight which Uchiyama won on an eighth round retirement. Miura went on to win the WBC title in 2013 and made five defences, four of them against Mexican fighters including Francisco Vargas who took Miura’s title in an exciting war of attrition which saw both fighters on the floor. He earned a shot at the title again by knocking out Miguel Roman but in his challenge to Miguel Berchelt on15 July he was comprehensively outboxed and has timed his retirement well. Uchiyama was a strong WBA super feather champion making 12 title defences and going 24-0-1 in his first 25 fights. He lost his title on a shock two round wipe out against Jezreel Corrales in April last year and lost a split decision to Corrales in December. The success enjoyed by these continued a great tradition of Japanese fighters in the lower divisions and guys such as Naoya Inoue and Kosei Tanaka are now carrying the torch. Cotto fights for the vacant WBO against Japanese fighter Yoshihiro Kamegai in Carson on 26 August. His talk of ending his career on 31 December does not leave him much time for another fight and I can’t believe that if he wins he will walk away if there is the chance of another big fight for him but we will see. I can’t believe there are many tears being shed over the current chaos in the AIBA. If you will pardon the phrase the gloves are off in the infighting going on there. An Interim Management Committee (IMC) is pursuing legal action against President Ching-Kuo Wu and they have gone to court to block Wu’s access to the AIBA funds and to the headquarters in Lausanne. There allegations of financial irregularities and even suggestions that the AIBA is almost bankrupt. A rule was introduced in 2010 saying no President could be re-elected after three mandates have been completed. Wu entered the office in 2006 was re-elected in 2010 and again in 2014 but he claims that the 2010 rule was not retroactive so he asserts he can be re-elected for 2018 and 2022. An Extraordinary Congress will be held in October and you can be sure there will be blood on the floor but whilst feeling some delight at the position Wu, a man who has caused such anger over his insisting professionals be allowed to box at the Olympics, finds himself in it is amateur boxing which is suffering right now with an absence of leadership. A big factor is the International Olympic Committee which has not yet issued any statement and whichever party they endorse will be in a very strong position. It is not out of the question that there could be a schism in amateur boxing but let’s hope not. Klitschko’s retirement has thrown a spanner in the works of the heavyweight division. We had Joshua vs. Klitschko II to look forward to but now Kubrat Pulev looks the only viable option if Joshua is going to fight this year. With Deontay Wilder fighting Luis Ortiz and Joseph Parker defending against Hughie Fury and Tyson Fury again hinting retirement the other options are dire. The sooner we get a crop of young heavyweights coming through the better then we can get rid of dead wood such as Bermane Stiverne, Alex Ustinov, Shannon Briggs, Fres Oquendo, Manuel Charr etc . There are some young heavyweights out there. On 30 September in Magdeburg unbeaten German hope Tom Schwarz 19-0 puts his WBO Inter-Continental title on the line against Pole Marcin Siwy 17-0 and on 6 October in Paris Olympic gold medallist Tony Yoka has his second fight. The pressure of expectation on Yoka is almost as intense as that on Anthony Joshua when he turned pro. There are also some very exciting British prospects such as Daniel Dubois, Joe Joyce and Nat Gorman and Swede Otto Wallin. What a mess the sanction bodies make of our sport. Jorge Linares will defend the WBC light title against Luke Campbell at the Forum in Inglewood on 23 September. Simple a good fight but for which WBC title? The WBC show in their ratings: Champion: Mikey Garcia, Diamond Champion: Jorge Linares! If Campbell beats Linares he will not be WBC Champion but WBC Diamond Champion-whatever that means. They said they were getting rid of interim titles but didn’t. They introduced Silver titles to replace the interim titles-but kept the interim titles. Then they invented diamond titles what next? Platinum, titanium, nickel, krypton, tellurium, xenon-I don’t want to worry you but there are 118 chemical elements! The WBA have been in their bossy boots mood this week. They have ordered Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam to defend his secondary middleweight title against Japanese fighter Ryota Murata. N’Jikam outpointed Murata for the vacant title in Japan in May which proved highly controversial. With the importance of the Japanese market it was obvious the WBA would take this action. Personally I did not think it was a bad decision. Murata did almost nothing over the first half of the fight but that was overlooked due to his stronger finish. The WBA have also instructed Kazuto Ioka to defend his flyweight title against No 1 challenger Artem Dalakian. Typical of the WBA is that Dalakian has never fought a rated opponent but somehow gets to No 1. There is talk of the WBA moving their offices I would like to suggest the Marianas Trench as a suitable site. To be fair to them they did take action against Shannon Briggs- if a six month suspension counts as a punishment. No wonder some fighters are willing to take the chance of using banned substances if six months is considered suitable punishment The gap between Briggs last two fights has been six months and eighth months which makes a six month ban a farce particularly as they let him retain his No 3 rating. The fact is that the WBA cannot stop Briggs fighting as their ban only applies to fights sanctioned by the WBA so Briggs could fight tomorrow and not be violating the ban. It is time the WBA stopped pontificating about fighting drugs in boxing and actually did something significant but they don’t have the guts to do so. Sergey Kovalev will return to action before the end of the year. The former light heavy champion will fight in New York but no opponent mentioned yet. Felix Verdejo is aiming to keep busy whilst waiting for Terry Flanagan to recover from his leg injury. Verdejo will fight on the undercard to the show in Tucson where Gilberto Ramirez defends his WBC super middle title against Jesse Hart and Oscar Valdez puts his WBO feather title on the line but no opponent named yet. Yuriorkis Gamboa is also returning. On 12 August in Cancun he goes up against Alexis Reyes. The Cuban is now 35 and you have to wonder where it all went wrong. At one time he was 23-0 and had held world titles in three divisions. What a waste of talent. Two fighters with dust to shed will clash in Las Vegas on 22 August as Mickey Bey faces Anthony Peterson. Former IBF light champion Bey will be having his first fight since losing his title to Rances Barthelemy in June last year and Peterson his first since beating Samuel Kotey Neequaye in April last year. Time is running out for Peterson to take his career seriously. Former WBA champion Juan Carlos Payano takes on Alexis Santiago and Ashley Theophane, Ron Gavril, Ishe Smith and unbeaten Saul Rodriguez are scheduled to also appear on this show. Rey Vargas makes the first defence of his WBC title against Ronny Rios in Carson, California on 26 August and Antonio Margarito continues his comeback on 2 September in Chihuahua against Carson Jones. There is talk of Daniel Jacobs returning on 14 October in New York with no opponent named. Jacobs vs. Jermall Charlo down the line. That would be an explosive pairing. Great bantam fight scheduled for Belfast with Zhanat Zhakiyanov defending his WBA title against IBF champion Ryan Burnett. A real 50/50 fight. Burnett will have home advantage but somehow I don’t think that will worry Zhakiyanov. He has fought in his native Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Switzerland, England, Belarus, China, Northern Ireland, Australia and Monaco and he won the title against an American in America. Poor Jorge Heiland. The Argentinian was first put in the No 1 spot by the WBC in April 2015 but contrary to past practice being No 1 did not make him the mandatory challenger (if the No 1 is not then who is?). After waiting two years to finally get to a point where he knows what he has to do to get the title shot he finds himself facing a much bigger opponent in Jermall Charlo. Then he injures his knee before the fight (he had the knee heavily taped when he climbed into the ring). You can’t blame him for going through with a fight he had no chance of winning. He had already waited two years and he must have feared that if he pulled out he would never get the chance. Ghana’s former Commonwealth champion Richard Commey has signed a promotion contract with Di Bella Entertainment. Let’s hope that the combination of strong management from Michael Amoo-Bediako and the promotional skills and influence of Lou Di Bella can get Commey another world title shot. In the case of South African cruiser Kevin Lerena he will be getting a title shot. The Johannesburg southpaw will face Youri Kayembre Kalenga for the vacant IBO cruiser title in his home city on 9 September. The undercard will see South African light middle champion Nkululeko Mhlongo try to rebound from three straight losses as he puts his title up for grabs against unbeaten Brandon Thysse. Mhlongo has never lost by KO/TKO but Thysse is 9-0 with 8 wins by KO/TKO. German police are still investigating the murder of Tunahan Keser. The young German professional boxer disappeared on June 23 and his body was found dumped in a forest on 21 July. He had been shot. On the day before Keser disappeared his trainer Khoren Gevor was shot in a knee but the police are not able to definitely connect the two although there seems a high probability the two incidents are linked. In my last Snips I wrote about how delighted people must have been to have seen the fight where two pro boxers, who were also lawyers, exchanged punches. A similar thing occurred at the show where Dominican Carlos Adames beat Carlos Molina. The press were kept outside the arena for 50 minutes and a few remarks were exchanged with the promoter’s representative who took off his coat and challenged one of the reporters to a bare fist fight in the parking lot. I had visions of a headline of “Press flattens Promoter” which might have made people think the promoter had stumbled into a dry-cleaning store. Boxing continues to be a family business. Last week in Mexico Jose Angel Napoles had his first pro fight and drew in a super light four rounder. This Napoles is the grandson of the great Jose Angel “Mantequilla” Napoles .Now I feel ancient as I can recall being at ringside at the Empire Pool in 1972 to see Jose kayo Ralph Charles in seven rounds. The world keeps shifting under my feet and it is all just too much for my aging mind to deal with. We have a guy who has never been in a professional boxing match getting paid millions to fight a former pound-for-pound champion. We have a new boxing series which offers prizes huge enough to convince some of the best in the world to stop avoiding each other and fight. It has actually allowed the “seeded” fighters to hand pick their opponents-but from a very tough list- and in doing so leaves the four main sanctioning bodies sitting on the sidelines helpless whilst their titles are rendered superfluous and they suffer the loss of sanctioning fees. There are also changes I relish and despite the egos we can look forward to one of the most anticipated fights for years in Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul Alvarez and if Anthony Joshua and Wlad Klitschko can make their minds up whether they are going to agree the date of the last Saturday in November in Las Vegas we will also be getting the most eagerly anticipated return fight in the heavyweight division since….hell it’s been so long since there was one I can’t remember when.
The drums have been beating for Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr and the stories have been trotted out about McGregor being floored in sparring and that the odds against a McGregor win have shortened dramatically etc. but in the end it will signify nothing. Whoever wins on 26 August it will mean nothing. It won’t change a single thing in the boxing world or prove anything. It is a manufactured spectacle of no long term significance to boxing but it will be a huge spectacle and by fight time I am going to be sick of people asking who I think will win. I will give them an honest answer-I don’t care. The World Super Series Boxing (WSSB) Is a different matter altogether as it will provide lots of fights in a relatively short time that would either not have happened at all or taken years to put together. There is no obvious down side to it although kicking the series off by clashing with the Golovkin vs. Alvarez fight is not a good start but it will certainly provide us with some top class matches and that has to be good. There was a lot of criticism in Germany over Arthur Abraham’s performance against Chris Eubank Jr. or the lack of it His long time trainer Ulli Wegner said that Abraham no longer had the heart for boxing. This performance and Abraham’s effort in April last year against Gilberto Ramirez where he lost every round have convinced many that at 37 he should retire. The title winning efforts of the Armenian born Abraham made him a millionaire at 37 and he has invested wisely in car dealerships and real estate so he does not need the money but he may not want to go out on such a humiliating loss. There has been a war of words going on between the WBC and the AIBA. It really is a waste of time. The AIBA will not stop dabbling in professional boxing and as long as they have the stranglehold on Olympic boxing they have a strong position. Setting up alternative amateur competitions or threatening sanctions against boxers if they fight in any AIBA events is futile. If the AIBA really think they can shove their way into professional booxng and become a player then let them. They will be no match for the big pro promoters and will just become a sanctioning body that crosses the red line on conflict of interest by also being a promoter line and they will find things different when they try to play with the big boys. The remark in the AIBA’s letter that struck me as hypocritical was where the President of the AIBA said that the word “amateur” is outdated. This from the President of the AIBA the Association Internationale de Boxe Amateur!! As far as the Olympics go he is right in that in most Olympic sport it is a competition for professionals. The original ideal is dead and commercialism rules. An indication of how things are changing is that just recently a Russian Boxing Federation has been formed from what were previously two separate bodies and they will control both amateur and professional boxing. The world keeps on changing. Despite his June 3 fight against Fres Oquendo for the vacant secondary WBA title being cancelled after he tested positive for high testosterone levels Shannon Briggs is talking about resuming his quest for a shot the heavyweight title in October. Only in boxing could someone with two positive tests be talking about taking part in such a high profile event just four months after he gave a positive test. Hopefully it is only Briggs blowing wind but if he does fight Oquendo in October for the vacant secondary WBA title it will be a 45-year-old Briggs having his first fight for 17 months against a 44-year-old Oquendo who has not fought for 40 months. This should cause even the WBA to cringe with embarrassment. Money matters in boxing so for those interested these were the reported purses for the fights at the weekend: Miguel Berchelt $250,000 Takashi Miura $195,000 Jezreel Corrales $75,000 Robinson Castellanos $50,000 Sullivan Barrera $120,000 Joe Smith Jr $160,000. So for a non-title ten round fight Smith took home more than Corrales and Castellanos earned between them for a title fight. It was also interesting that more money was paid out for the non-title show in Uniondale New York than in the title show in Inglewood. In Uniondale the purses were $250,000 each for both Omar Figueroa and Roberto Guerrero, $250,000 for Sean Monaghan $100,000 for Marcus Browne, $150,000 for Artur Szpilka and $100,000 for Adam Kownacki. So some big numbers but at the other end of the spectrum Top Rank won the bidding for the IBF welter eliminator between Konstantin Ponomarev and Carlos Ocampo reportedly with a bid of $30,000 which seems low. The winner of the eliminator will be the mandatory challenger to Errol Spence. There must have been a time when Robinson Castellanos thought that appearing on a big show or being paid $50,000 for a fight or fighting for a world title were all impossible dreams. After turning pro in 2002 he went 10-10 in his first 20 fights including five losses by KO/TKO. From there he went 14-2 in his next 16 fights and ended up fighting Corrales for the WBA title-quite a turn around. Sullivan Barrera’s win over Joe Smith Jr on Saturday has seen the two fighters now heading down very different paths. Barrera is being mentioned as a prospective opponent for both Sergey Kovalev and Nathan Cleverly and Smith is facing surgery for a fractured jaw he suffered in the second round of their fight. Boxing can be cruel and kind and this is a prime example of the way the pendulum can swing. Whilst Barrera seems to be making progress Artur Beterbiev is finding banana skins. His proposed IBF eliminator with German Enrico Koelling was to be the main support to Mikey Garcia vs. Adrien Broner on 29 July but has had to be cancelled. It has been suggested that with Beterbiev being a Muslim from Dagestan the tighter visa restrictions introduced by the USA have caused both an application and an appeal to be refused but to complicate matters further there is a dispute between Yvon Michel and Beterbiev over the status of their contract and he still has a past manager going to the courts. The IBF have asked for purse bids for the fight by 25 July but even then nothing is certain. Will Andre Ward want to fight the winner or will he move up to cruiser, will Beterbiev fight if Michel wins the purse bidding, will Beterbiev solve his visa problems-too much uncertainty. With their No 1 Callum Smith opting for the WSSB tournament the WBC have given a date of 28 July for purse offers for the match between Anthony Dirrell vs. David Benavidez for their vacant super middle title. On 18 August in Mendoza Argentinian Juan Carlos Reveco faces Thai Komgrich in a final eliminator to find a challenger for WBO fly champion Donnie Nietes Good to see Billy Joe Saunders getting back into action. For a variety of reasons the WBO middleweight champion has made only one defence of his title in the 19 months since he won it. His challenger Willie Monroe was crushed in six rounds by Gennady Golovkin in 2015 but rehabilitated himself with a victory over tough Gabriel Rosado in September. In the division eliminators are already set with the WBC mandatory challenger coming from the winner of the fight between Jorge Sebastian Heiland and Jermall Charlo and the IBF from Tureano Johnson and Sergey Derevyanchenko. Neither Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam or Ryota Murata are likely opponents so if Saunders beats Monroe his list of top quality opposition is limited but things can change quickly in boxing. The Firat Arslan vs. Goran Delic fight was not a classic. Arslan was much too good for the carefully protected Delic. The promoters missed out on a great ticket selling line-both fighters work as lawyers and I am sure there a lot of people who would gladly pay to see two lawyers beat each other up. The “Super Series” tournaments are proving popular. Rodney Berman has already run a couple and now he is launching two more in October at super middle and super bantam which will feature both high profile fighters such as Simphiwe Vetyeka and also give some promising fighters their chance. Two South African fighters will face Filipino fighters in world title bouts. Gideon Buthelezi will put his IBO super fly title on the line against Filipino Ryan Rey Ponteras in East London and Hekkie Budler heads out to Cebu City to challenge Milan Melindo for the IBF light fly title. It will a toughie for Budler as Melindo will be making the first defence of the title he won with a shock first round stoppage of Akira Yaegashi in Tokyo in May. Budler will be aiming to become a three division champion so won’t be fazed by travelling into the lion’s den. One title fight per show is never enough in Japan and there will be two titles on the line in Osaka on 13 September. IBF super bantam champion Yukinori Oguni puts his title up against Ryosuke Iwasa and WBO light fly champion Kosei Tanaka defends his title against Thai Palangpol. I can’t believe there is an outfit aiming to re-introduce bare knuckle fighting. The sport has enough of an image problem without someone taking us back to the bare knuckle days. They claim to already have acceptance from some Sates for this but I know that some countries will never legalise it. If someone suffered a serious injury it is difficult to see how a judge could view it any differently to a street fight and if someone if badly injured in a street fight the law offers no protection to any participant. Unbeaten Isaac Dogboe continues to be a big draw in Ghana. He fights this weekend against Argentinian Javier Chacon in the first defence of his WBO International title. Chacon is his toughest test yet as the Argentinian went the distance in a challenge against Anselmo Moreno for the WBA bantam title in 2014 and challenged Jamie McDonnell for the secondary WBA title in 2014 when a dislocated shoulder forced him out of the fight. As for the eliminator status of the fight with Chacon not currently in the WBO top 15 that is not a final eliminator but another step along the path for the former Olympian. Another important fight for a Ghanaian boxer will see Emmanuel Tagoe defending his IBO title against former IBF super feather champion Argenis Mendez. The Dominican was looking a bit like damaged goods after back to back losses to Robert Easter and Luke Campbell but last time out he scored a good win over Ivan Redkach and he is the highest profile fight the 30-year-old Tagoe has faced in his 13 year career. So sad to read of the death of Paul Ferreri. The Australian was a truly talented boxer and a genuinely nice person. He was Australian champion at bantam, feather and super feather and Commonwealth champion at bantam and super bantam. His one world title shot came in 1976 against the great Carlos Zarate and he was stopped in twelve rounds. He was 17-2 in Australian title fights and 11-3 in Commonwealth title fights in a 78-13-5 record and was one of the greatest little men produced by Australia. We also lost Eddie “The Animal” Lopez. The Californian heavyweight never reached the heights with a draw against Leon Spinks his highest profile achievement. His four losses in his 25-4-2 record were to John Tate, Gerry Cooney, Marty Monroe and Tony Tucker. Unfortunately Eddie was one guy boxing could not save as he was a member of one of the biggest gangs in East Los Angeles and was no stranger to jail or drugs. Once again from my soapbox. The weekend saw more flapping glove tapes. Why can’t they tape the gloves up as normal and then just wind a band of good quality Velcro on top of the tape-or is that too simple? Historically the usual reason for a no contest was when the referee decided that one or both boxers were not giving their best and threw them both out. That was the stigma associated with a No Contest. That’s a sensible and valid use of No Contest. However If a fight ends inside four rounds due to a cut it and is not a win a loss or a draw then no decision is rendered so why do we not call it a No Contest when there was a valid contest but an unfinished one and no decision was rendered. Whoever came up with No Contest did not think it through. Here endeth the lesson! |
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