Protect Yourself at All Times

by Hauser, Thomas

  Broner isn’t the only fighter with a history of blowing off weight requirements. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr comes quickly to mind, among others. But Broner has raised the practice to an art form with no repercussions to date. That tarnishes the integrity of the competition.

  Broner–Granados was scheduled for ten rounds. Ernie Sharif was the referee. Unfortunately, Sharif allowed Broner (who was the house fighter and hometown favorite) to foul throughout the bout.

  In round three, Broner rocked Granados with a combination that consisted of an elbow to the nose followed by a head butt that opened a cut on the bridge of Granados’s nose. That was followed by more elbows, more head butts, forearms to the throat, and other maneuvers that might be acceptable in mixed martial arts but are illegal in boxing.

  Sharif looked on as a somewhat interested spectator might throughout it all.

  It was a difficult fight to score. I gave the nod to Granados by a 96–94 margin. The judges awarded Broner a split-decision victory, which led Granados to complain during a post-fight interview, “They were playing with me. We had to change the weight. They’re just playing all types of fucking games. That’s bullshit. Give me a fair go. You all are treating me like I’m a dumb ass. Come on, man. That’s bullshit.”

  Broner has lost both times he went in tough (against Marcos Maidana and Shawn Porter). He fights like a man who’s looking for shortcuts and, in recent years, has regressed as a fighter. He should be fighting at 140 pounds but appears to lack the discipline to make that weight.

  In all three of PBC’s February 25, 2017, fights on FOX, the referee stopped the bout with the loser still on his feet. Each stoppage was appropriate.

  In the first televised bout of the evening, heavyweights Dominic Breazeale and Izuagbe Ugonoh engaged in an unartful slugfest that was more brawling than boxing. But it was fun while it lasted.

  Breazeale was knocked out by Anthony Joshua in seven rounds in June 2016. In that outing, he showed toughness and courage but not much more. Ugonoh was born in Poland to Nigerian parents, fought his first nine pro contests in Poland, and then moved to New Zealand, where he had eight more bouts.

  Ugonoh was the aggressor in rounds one and two and landed reasonably often as Breazeale plodded stoically forward. But in round three, Izuagbe got careless, found himself on the receiving end of a right hand, and acquainted himself with the canvas. He rose to stagger Breazeale before the round was done. Then, after the bell, Breazeale landed a thudding right hand to the kidney, and Ugonoh sank to the canvas in pain. Referee Jeff Dodson let the matter pass without warning, as he’d done when Breazeale tackled Ugonoh earlier in the stanza.

  In round four, two overhand rights wobbled Breazeale. This time, Dominic missed the open-field tackle and stumbled to the canvas. But in round five, Breazeale turned things around, winding up with two overhand rights that everyone in the arena except Ugonoh could see coming. That put Ugonoh down for the second time. He beat the count but was being pummeled when the referee intervened to save him from further punishment at the fifty-second mark.

  Next up, Jarrett Hurd battled Tony Harrison for the vacant IBF 154-pound belt. Both fighters had beaten the usual suspects. But Harrison was knocked out in the ninth round when he stepped up in class in 2015 to fight Willie Nelson.

  In the early rounds of Hurd–Harrison, Hurd was the more confident, more aggressive fighter. Harrison fought cautiously, picking his spots and throwing enough counterpunches to keep Jarrett honest. In round three, Harrison found a groove, becoming busier and more effective than before. In part that was because Hurd didn’t know how to cut off the ring (or if he did, he couldn’t implement the strategy). And in part it was because Hurd seemed mystified by a counterpuncher.

  Then, in round eight, Harrison began to tire, and one wondered if the Willie Nelson fight was in the back of his mind. If it wasn’t, it should have been. Two minutes and eight seconds into round nine, a straight right dropped Harrison to the canvas. He rose, looked disoriented, spat out his mouthpiece, and referee Jim Korb stopped the fight.

  That set the stage for Deontay Wilder vs. Gerald Washington.

  Since winning his WBC heavyweight belt twenty-five months ago against Bermane Stiverne, Wilder had faced Eric Molina, Johann Duhaupas, Artur Szpilka, and Chris Arreola. That’s low-level competition.

  Washington, age thirty-four, is a former college football player who played defensive end, mostly as a backup, for the University of Southern California. He had fourteen amateur fights and didn’t turn pro until four months after his thirtieth birthday. Prior to attending college, he was a helicopter mechanic in the United States Navy.

  In an effort to hype Wilder–Washington, the promotion kept talking about what a “great athlete” Washington is. The same was said about former college football player Michael Grant before he was knocked out by Lennox Lewis, Dominick Guinn, Jameel McCline, Carlos Takam, and Manuel Charr. Grant was a better athlete than Washington and also a better fighter.

  Wilder defended the choice of Washington as an opponent, citing his own seven-month layoff due to a broken hand and torn biceps before adding, “We all know boxing is a business first. No matter what fans want to see, no matter what anybody wants to see, boxing is a business.”

  Fighting in Birmingham as a native son of Alabama, Wilder was the local hero and a 12-to-1 betting favorite.

  The first few rounds of Wilder–Washington saw Wilder do next to nothing while Washington tried to establish his jab. But Washington fights with his feet spread so far apart that he pushes his jab rather than stepping into it. Worse, Washington leans in when he throws the jab and brings it back low and slow. That’s a no-no in boxing and raised the question of what would happen when Wilder got around to timing Washington’s jab and dropped a right hand over the top. The answer came in round five: KO 5. At the time of the stoppage, one judge had Wilder ahead 39–37. The other two judges had the fight even at 38–38. That was hometown scoring.

  Later in the evening, Wilder got into another fight. This one was against Dominic Breazeale in the lobby of the Westin Birmingham Hotel, where the fighters and their respective camps were staying.

  Wilder had signaled bad blood toward Breazeale at the post-fight press conference, telling the media, “He had an altercation with my little brother. You don’t mess with my little brother. If you have a problem, you come to me and we can handle it. We can deal with it accordingly. So with that, I’ve got a problem with him. And it ain’t no problem that I wanna see him in the ring. So I’ll see him.”

  See him, Deontay did. The fight spilled out onto the street and police intervention was necessary to restore order.

  On Sunday morning, Breazeale posted a statement on Instagram that read, “I want to address the fact that Deontay Wilder and a mob of about 20 people unprovokedly attacked my team and my family in the lobby last night. My coach and I were blindsided by sucker-punches and my team was assaulted as well, all in front [of my] wife and kids. This cowardly attack has no place in boxing and, believe me, it will not go unpunished.”

  Wilder had a previous run-in with the law when he was arrested in 2013 after an incident in a Las Vegas hotel room and charged with domestic battery by strangulation. According to a police report, the woman in question had a possible broken nose, swelling around her eyes, a cut lip, and red marks on her neck. Wilder’s attorney later said that Deontay was apologetic and had mistakenly thought the woman was planning to rob him. The matter was settled out of court.

  But returning to in-ring combat . . . Wilder can whack with his right hand. The chopping punch to the temple that dropped Washington would cause problems for any heavyweight. However, a good heavyweight might be experienced enough to not get hit by it. And Deontay has flaws as a fighter. Lots of them, including the fact that he pulls straight back from punches instead of slipping them. At present, he’s an intriguing contender, not a champion.

  It was the kind of knockout that boxing fans love and hate.

  On March 11, 201
7, HBO Boxing After Dark featured David Lemieux (36–3, 32 KOs) vs. Curtis Stevens (29–5, 21 KOs) in a scheduled twelve-round bout from Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York.

  Lemieux–Stevens shaped up as an exciting fight.

  Lemieux, age twenty-eight, was being groomed against soft opposition when he went in semi-tough against Marco Antonio Rubio in 2011 and was knocked out in the seventh round. His ship sank further when he lost a decision to Joachim Alcine in his next outing. Since then, Lemieux had won eleven of twelve fights, most notably against Fernando Guerrero, Gabriel Rosado, and Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam. But he was obliterated when he stepped up in class to fight Gennady Golovkin in 2015.

  Stevens, age thirty-two, turned pro in 2004 and was expected to rise steadily through the ranks. But he has run hot and cold during his career, losing fights he should have won (versus Marcos Primera) and also fights he was expected to lose (against Golovkin and Andre Dirrell). Curtis can be formidable, even heroic. Or he can stink out an arena (as he did in disappointing efforts against Jesse Brinkley and N’Dam N’Jikam).

  Both Lemieux and Stevens made the 160-pound contract weight one day before the fight. But because their encounter was for a pair of very minor sanctioning-body belts, they were required to weigh in again at 170 pounds or less on Saturday morning. Stevens did so, weighing in at 167¼ pounds. Lemieux blew off the second weigh-in, leaving him ineligible to compete for a faux title that virtually no one in or out of boxing cared about. On fight night, according to the “unofficial HBO scale,” Lemieux entered the ring at 177 pounds and Stevens weighed 170.

  There was considerable trash-talking between the fighters in the build-up to the fight. Lemieux was the primary provocateur, but Stevens gave as good as he got.

  “I am who I am, seven days a week,” Curtis said during a media conference call. “If I’ve got something to say about you, I say it to you. The difference between me and David is, David says it to the camera and I say it to directly to his face.”

  Later, Stevens added, “This is boxing. Everyone has a turn to get hurt.”

  On Saturday night, it was Curtis’s turn.

  Lemieux pushed the action from the opening bell. Round one saw hard-punching, non-stop exchanges that could have been taken from a movie script, with Lemieux dishing out more than he took. Round two featured Stevens throwing hard left hooks up top that missed and hard left hooks to the body that hurt. In round three, Stevens continued to meet Lemieux’s aggression with aggression. Then . . .

  Lights out!

  Both fighters threw left hooks, with Lemieux pulling the trigger first. Stevens was unconscious before he hit the canvas. He lay there for a disturbingly long time and was taken from the ring on a stretcher after regaining consciousness. Later that night, he underwent a CT scan at a local hospital as a precautionary measure and was responsive and well in the early hours of Sunday morning.

  The knockout brought back memories of November 4, 2005, when Jaidon Codrington—a super-middleweight who was once considered a “can’t-miss” prospect—brought a 9–0 (9 KOs) record to Oklahoma to fight Allan Green.

  Stevens and Codrington were friends who trained together at Brooklyn’s Starrett City Boxing Club. Because of their all-knockout records, they were known in boxing circles as “The Chin Checkers.”

  Seconds into Codrington–Green, Green fired a left hook to the temple that landed in a freakish way, leaving Jaidon senseless but still standing with his arms frozen upright. Green then landed several more blows and Codrington pitched forward face-first into the ropes, where he was entangled on the bottom two strands. Several spectators pushed him back into the ring. His body looked lifeless and his neck was twisted grotesquely so that his head was tucked beneath his torso. He was carried from the ring on a stretcher.

  “I thought he was dead,” Showtime boxing analyst Steve Farhood, who was at ringside, later admitted.

  Codrington recovered and resumed his pro career. But he was never the same fighter again.

  Boxing isn’t a video game. And the stakes go far beyond the money involved.

  I know this flies in the face of conventional wisdom. But I think one reason pay-per-view shows have engendered poor buy numbers lately is that boxing fans feel cheated by, and have grown weary of, colossally boring undercard fights. It’s hard to remember the last time a pay-per-view undercard gave fans a “water-cooler fight.”

  That changed on March 18, 2017, when Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez defended his WBC 115-pound title against Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (a.k.a. Wisaksil Wangek) on the undercard of Gennady Golovkin vs. Danny Jacobs at Madison Square Garden.

  Gonzalez (46–0, 38 KOs) was at or near the top of most pound-for-pound lists.

  Rungvisai (41–4–1, 38 KOs, 2 KOs by) had fought four times since 2015. His two most recent opponents were making their pro debut when he fought them and, according to BoxRec.com, haven’t fought since. His other two opponents last year had records of 12 and 19 and 3 and 5 (with 14 losses by knockout between them).

  Chocolatito was a step up in competition for Rungvisai (which was thought to be like saying the iceberg the Titanic hit was a step up in competition from an ice cube in the vessel’s cocktail lounge).

  Gonzalez vs. Rungvisai turned out to be an enthralling savage, brutal fight.

  Boxing fans knew they were in for the unexpected when Rungvisai dropped Gonzalez with a hard right to the body in round one. An accidental clash of heads in round three opened a horrific gash on Gonzalez’s right eyebrow. Chocolatito appeared shaken by another clash of heads in round six, after which referee Steve Willis deducted a point from Rungvisai.

  Blood streamed down the right side of Gonzalez’s face throughout the bout, leaving him at a significant disadvantage.

  Round after round, the two men traded blows with abandon, fighting as though it would be an affront to their honor to slip a punch. A purist might have quibbled that defense is also part of boxing. But there were twelve rounds of non-stop “oohs” and “aahs.” Each man fought beyond what can be reasonably expected of a professional fighter.

  Imagine Arturo Gatti versus Arturo Gatti, and you have Gonzalez versus Rungvisai.

  At the final bell, the crowd rose and paid tribute with a standing ovation. Both fighters were taken to the hospital afterward. In addition to the many blows that they took to the head, Gonzalez had possible eye damage and there was considerable blood in Rungvisai’s urine.

  Most members of the media (including this writer) thought that Gonzalez won the fight, many by a comfortable margin. The judges saw things differently, giving the nod to Rungvisai on a 114–112, 114–112, 113–113 majority decision that elicited vociferous boos from the crowd.

  According to CompuBox, Gonzalez out-landed Rungvisai by a 441 to 284 margin with a 372-to-277 edge in “power punches.” The judges might have been scoring blood rather than punches landed.

  The latest installment of “Brooklyn Boxing” was contested at Barclays Center on April 22, 2017. The main fight of the evening was a WBC “elimination” bout between Shawn Porter (26–2, 18 KOs) and Andre Berto (31–4, 24 KOs) to determine the mandatory challenger for Keith Thurman’s 147 crown.

  In a co-featured bout, WBC 154-pound title-holder Jermell Charlo (28–0, 13 KOs) squared off against Charles Hatley (26–1–1, 18 KOs).

  The key figure in it all was Porter.

  Asked to describe himself, Porter says, “I think I’m a good guy. I believe in positive energy. I’m always positive. I’m always respectful. I work hard. I follow the rules. I hang out with the right people. I’d rather play Monopoly with my friends than hang out at a nightclub all night. I like looking good, but I don’t like looking like anyone else, so there’s some of that in my style. I love the competition in boxing and being in the moment. When I’m in the ring, I love hearing the crowd scream. It’s exhilarating, an indescribable feeling. And I’m always trying to make other people happy.”

  Porter is a very good fighter who hasn’t quite gotten
over the hump. He stepped up to the elite level on two occasions (against Kell Brook and Keith Thurman) and lost a close decision each time.

  Berto was a promising prospect who got rich against a string of soft touches during the Kery Davis era at HBO. What Andre didn’t do during that time was develop his ring skills to their full potential. He’s now thirty-three years old and his best years as a fighter are behind him. Over the past six and a half years, he has won four of nine fights.

  “Everybody knows the boxing game,” Berto said during an April 13 media conference call. “You’re as good as your last performance. They’ll write you off quick. That’s just how the game goes. I can’t sit there and be upset at it. I knew what I was getting into.”

  As for the co-feature, Charlo-Hatley was Jermell’s first fight since he claimed the vacant WBC 154-pound throne with an eighth-round knockout of John Jackson eleven months ago. His twin brother, Jermall, recently held the IBF 154-pound title but announced that he was relinquishing it to move up to 160 pounds.

  Hatley was an unheralded challenger. “I’d like a little respect,” he said at the final pre-fight press conference. “Once they clean him [Charlo] up off the ground, I’ll get that respect.”

  “Keep running your mouth,” Charlo told him.

  Jermell was an 8-to-1 favorite.

  Round one was a feeling-out stanza. Then Charlo found the right range. Midway through round three, a jab-right combination put Hatley on the canvas. He rose quickly and spent the rest of the round on his bicycle. From that point on, Jermell was the clear aggressor. Thirty seconds into round six, a vicious, picture-perfect, straight right from Charlo landed flush on Hatley’s jaw and rendered him unconscious.

  That set the stage for Porter–Berto.

  Shawn Porter is in his prime. Andre Berto is past it.

  Also, Porter is exactly the kind of fighter who’s wrong for Berto. A big, strong guy who keeps coming forward throwing punches and can take a punch; a much better version of Jesus Soto Karass, who wore Andre down and knocked him out in the twelfth round three years ago.