“Fighting Words” - So Fast Out the Gate, So Good So Far

by David P. Greisman

Guillermo Rigondeaux didn’t make his pro debut until two years after Nonito Donaire had won his first world title. Donaire had been in the title picture for nearly six years before they faced off. Rigondeaux had been in the paid ranks for just four years by that point.

Naoya Inoue had only fought five times as a pro before challenging Adrian Hernandez, whose 32-bout career included eight title fights.

Artur Beterbiev’s five-fight career consisted of fewer than 11 rounds in total by the time he met Tavoris Cloud, who had five individual nights that each lasted longer than Beterbiev’s cumulative pro campaign.

None of that mattered.

Rigondeaux out-boxed Donaire and established himself as the true champion of the 122-pound division. Inoue stopped Hernandez within six rounds and captured a belt and attention in the junior flyweight division. And Beterbiev demolished Cloud in less than four minutes, forcefully nominating himself as a future contender at light heavyweight.

These weren’t your usual crossroads bouts.

Typically a boxer who is younger or at least less experienced will not step in against accomplished veterans so early, never mind world titleholders. Usually that will wait until they’ve already spent years blasting through overmatched designated opponents and gritty journeymen, foes who recognize that they’re there either to be blown out quickly or to give the prospect rounds and perhaps help him grow as a fighter.

Rigondeaux, Inoue, Beterbiev and featherweight titleholder Vasyl Lomachenko are among a handful of pros to come very fast out of the gate, making splashes and then making waves far earlier in their careers than do an overwhelming majority of prospects.

Inoue is apparently a prodigy at just 21 years old. It would be misleading to describe the other three as being young, and despite their pro records they are definitely not inexperienced.

Rigondeaux turns 34 this week and is about two years older than Donaire. He is considered to be one of the best amateur boxers ever, an Olympic gold medalist in the 2000 and 2004 games who got caught trying to defect from Cuba in 2007 before making it out of his home country for good in 2009.

Beterbiev is 29 years old. He won a silver medal representing Russia in the 2007 world championships and a gold in the 2009 competition, both at light heavyweight, then challenged himself with a move up to heavyweight and the bigger foes that come with a 201-pound weight limit.

Lomachenko is 26 and also was a top amateur, winning gold for Ukraine in the 2008 Olympics at featherweight and in 2012 at lightweight. He had six bouts under the auspices of the semi-pro World Series of Boxing before going official in late 2013. Earlier this year, in what is considered either his second pro fight or his eighth, he challenged 126-pound titleholder Orlando Salido, losing a close split decision against an opponent who had come in overweight and got away with plenty of dirty tactics during the bout. Then in June, Lomachenko topped Gary Russell Jr. to pick up a vacant title belt.

The bout between Lomachenko and Russell represented the stark contrast between this crop of top foreign amateurs and the plethora of prospects and pretenders who fill undercards and are given a spotlight based more on their connections than their accomplishments. Lomachenko was either 1-1 or 7-1, depending on your perspective, and already he had been in tougher than Russell, who was also 26 but was 24-0 at the time, had been pro for more than five years, and was considered someone who appeared to be talented but was otherwise untested.

The pedigrees of Lomachenko and Rigondeaux were obvious from the outset, not just in their physical tools but their mental calm. They looked comfortable in the ring. Their technical skills were already clearly refined. They and Beterbiev come from highly respected amateur programs with histories of international success.

Amateur acclaim doesn’t always translate to the pros, where the scoring is different and hence so too are the styles. That is what young American boxers have often reminded themselves in these years when the United States has produced fewer and fewer medalists in the Olympics and world championships. Their training, they convince themselves, will suit them better in the paid ranks.

Yet they still tend to be incomplete upon arrival. They still need to develop and grow, adding elements until they reach that sweet spot of physical prime and mental enlightenment. If they do, some are able to blossom and flourish for years.

For those boxers, such patience is prudent.

The last American male to win Olympic gold was Andre Ward in 2004. Ward and his team were often criticized for how gradually he was being moved along, although they defended that approach. It took about five years from his pro debut for Ward to face an upper-level super middleweight, but when he did, he impressed by taking out the consensus best at 168, winning a technical decision over Mikkel Kessler in 2009.

“I think a lot of people — that’s promoters, managers, and maybe even some of the trainers — make mistakes with world-class athletes,” said Ward’s trainer, Virgil Hunter, to boxing writer Steve Kim in an interview afterward. “And to have someone come out of the amateurs, how can you possibly have a professional fighter just like that? This kid has been an amateur for 10, 12 years. I’m talking about the kids that got over 150 fights and then started in the juniors, came all the way up. You have to give these kids time to make a transition over into the professional ranks.

“Now, there are some exceptions. You might have a kid that fought 30, 40 amateur fights and they turn pro and they’ll transition into a pro a little sooner because that real amateur pedigree hasn’t sunk into them, yet,” Hunter said. “So one minute you’re trying to beat a computer [the now-former amateur scoring system] and not get touched and the next minute they expect you to sit down on your punches and fight a pro fight."

The last American male to win any Olympic medal was Deontay Wilder, who was raw and rather new to the sport when he captured bronze at heavyweight in 2008. Wilder is now nearly 29 years old and has fought 32 times, winning all 32 by knockout. His level of competition is appropriately maligned as stiffs being knocked stiff, with a few faded veterans or capable disappointments mixed in toward the end of his run. He will soon be challenging Bermane Stiverne for a heavyweight world title without ever having beaten another top big man.

That’s the business aspect of boxing. These prospects get to develop while getting paydays, putting rounds and money in the bank, taking as little risk as possible with these years in development. American broadcasters are always hungry for the next big superstar and so are willing to pay to have the potential breakout boxers within their fold early. It’s why guys like Andre Berto and Adrien Broner were able to get the spotlight and six figures for easy outings.

It’s why someone like Tavoris Cloud is so representative of the way many boxers are moved from being prospects into contention and perhaps into time with a world title.

Cloud was maneuvered carefully. He beat 18 no-hopers before facing faded veteran Julio Cesar Gonzalez in a sanctioning body’s elimination bout. He sat on the sideline for a year, as the Gonzalez win had earned him a bout with former beltholder Clinton Woods for a vacant world title. Cloud was good enough to beat Glen Johnson in 2010, but his limits showed in a victory over Gabriel Campillo in 2012 that many considered a robbery.

When Bernard Hopkins wanted to regain a title belt after being deposed of the true championship at 175, he knew to take aim at Cloud, who needed the payday. Hopkins outpointed Cloud in March 2013, and Cloud then went on to get beaten badly by light heavyweight king Adonis Stevenson that September.

It had been nearly a year to the date when Cloud returned against Beterbiev this past Saturday. It’s easy to wonder how much Beterbiev’s win says about the up-and-coming prospect and how much it says about how far and how quickly Cloud had fallen.

It was still impressive, and now we want to see what Beterbiev will do next.

And we should be drawn to fighters like Inoue and Lomachenko — Rigondeaux, for all of his brilliance and ability, has turned off a segment of boxing fans due to a number of fights that haven’t been particularly entertaining.

We are so used to considering prospects as suspect, to thinking there is little steak behind the sizzle. Even someone like Leon Spinks, who in his eighth pro fight beat an aging Muhammad Ali for the heavyweight championship, lost to Ali in the rematch and never again approached the top of the sport.

It’s still early for Beterbiev, Inoue and Lomachenko. They’ve been fast out the gate. Now they get to show whether they can stay this strong down the stretch.

The 10 Count

1.  There was plenty of boxing on this past weekend; you just had to know where to find it.

On Friday, if you were truly bored, there was Roy Jones taking on a no-hoper named Hany Atiyo from an arena in Krasnodar, Russia. (I haven’t yet been able to find video uploaded anywhere of Anselmo Moreno losing his bantamweight title to Juan Carlos Payano.)

On Saturday, you could’ve started early with cruiserweight Denis Lebedev scoring a one-punch win over Pawel Kolodziej in Moscow. Then you could’ve seen the headline bout in which 200-pounder Grigory Drozd topped beltholder Krzysztof Wlodarczyk. This show was broadcast as an independent pay-per-view.

Then came the card in Germany with a main event in which Arthur Abraham defended his 168-pound title bout with a unanimous decision over Paul Smith, though the scorecards were wider than some observers felt was proper (I haven’t watched it yet and hence did not score it).

Up in Montreal, the top of the card featured the aforementioned Artur Beterbiev making quick work of former 175-pound titleholder Tavoris Cloud.

There was an online pay-per-view broadcast (and a Nicaraguan television broadcast streamed online) of a show in Oklahoma City that included some old names, Ricardo Mayorga, Samuel Peter and Yory Boy Campas, in separate bouts.

And then there were cards broadcast on the Spanish-language networks, including a bout between Alvarez and Chavez — no, not Canelo and Julio Jr., but brothers Ramon Alvarez and Omar Chavez. Alvarez won a decision.

Years ago, you would’ve had no good excuse to stay inside on what was a beautiful late September day…

2.  The best part about that Oklahoma City card was that it was blissfully brief. When you convince yourself to tune in because of the fact that something newsworthy might happen with three familiar yet far-past-their-prime names, you don’t want to spend too much time watching otherwise meaningless matches.

Sam Peter, who somehow got even fatter since we last saw him, beat Maine man (and similarly rotund) Ron Aubrey in less than one round. Peter beat the 69-4-3/69-5-3 James Toney back in 2006 and 2007. Aubrey, meanwhile, beat Toney — Alonzo Toney, who was 3-14 — back in 2012.

Yory Boy Campas won a six-round decision over some dude named Julio Cesar Lanzas whose name seemed like it came from a boxing video game that had been unable to make a licensing deal with Julio Cesar Chavez. (I was always partial to “QB Eagles” in Tecmo Super Bowl.)

And Ricardo Mayorga needed about a minute to dispose of Allen “Fonky Cole” Medina, who has had one of my favorite nicknames ever since I saw him lose to Mike Lee on the Miguel Cotto-Antonio Margarito rematch undercard.

3.  If you had the disposable income to spend $20 on that show, or if you’ve gotten tired of adding to Floyd Mayweather’s bank account in $75 chunks, let me remind you that you can still get several days’ worth of good boxing reading in for just about $14 (and for just $10 in e-book format).

My book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon and the links to the book’s page on international Amazon sites are at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide .

Your support indirectly buys me beer, which helps me get through those nights when I watch Ricardo Mayorga, Sam Peter and Yory Boy Campas fight in the year 2014 — all so that you don’t have to.

4.  When Floyd Mayweather made his jump to Showtime in early 2013, it wasn’t quite the industry-changing announcement that some said it was. That’s because the industry had already changed, with Showtime making major moves, showing more and more Golden Boy fights and establishing itself as a significant player in the boxing broadcast business. The addition of Mayweather and his name value was a very public way of demonstrating that status.

The announcement last week that HBO has signed Canelo Alvarez to a multi-fight deal isn’t monumental, but it is interesting.

Alvarez had gotten his first widespread American audiences on HBO and on HBO pay-per-view undercards dating back to 2010. He had been with Showtime since September 2012, when HBO distributed the Sergio Martinez-Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. pay-per-view and Showtime was to distribute a competing pay-per-view featuring Alvarez on the same day and in the same city. Several opponents fell out, and Alvarez’s win over Josesito Lopez wound up on “regular” Showtime.

His relationship with Showtime lasted for five fights in about two years, with the bouts against Lopez and Austin Trout on the network and then with pay-per-view main events against Mayweather, Alfredo Angulo and Erislandy Lara.

No opponent has been announced yet for Canelo’s first bout back with HBO. Showtime’s Stephen Espinoza said Golden Boy wanted a sizable license fee for Canelo to face Joshua Clottey (remember him?). We’ll see if that’s what we end up getting on HBO.

Here’s a ratings breakdown of Canelo’s non-PPV television broadcasts:

- Alvarez vs. Matthew Hatton, March 2011, HBO: 1.381 million viewers

- Alvarez vs. Ryan Rhodes, June 2011, HBO: 1.55 million viewers

- Alvarez vs. Kermit Cintron,  November 2011, HBO: 1.469 million viewers

- Alvarez vs. Josesito Lopez, September 2012, Showtime: 1.036 million viewers

- Alvarez vs. Austin Trout, April 2013, Showtime: 1.061 million viewers

I’ll be curious as to how Alvarez does in the ratings in the next few fights, and also whether he can build into the pay-per-view attraction that Golden Boy was hoping he’d become, particularly given his popularity and the eventual retirements of pay-per-view stars Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. It’s the belief that we’ll end up getting Canelo vs. Miguel Cotto sometime next year.

I’m also curious as to how this will affect Golden Boy’s relationship with Showtime, given that we’ve now had Bernard Hopkins take the Sergey Kovalev fight on HBO and Alvarez leave for HBO (the latter in a manner that left Espinoza displeased with the way he felt Oscar De La Hoya handled things).

I still wonder how few fighters Golden Boy actually has under contract and how many are just with boxing adviser Al Haymon and merely working with Golden Boy.

The industry continues to change, and all of this inside baseball matters because of the potential it has to have consequences on what boxing fans can and cannot get for their money.

5.  So, the Nevada Athletic Commission called Floyd Mayweather before them last week over concerns about a couple of scenes from the “All Access” advertorial series on Showtime:

- A scene in which a pair of boxers allegedly went at it for 31 straight minutes.

- A scene in which people smoke marijuana inside of Mayweather’s home.

In front of the commission, Mayweather claimed that these scenes were staged and edited for the sake of the cameras, that the marijuana wasn’t real and that there were breaks in the sparring.

And the commission took Mayweather at his word. It also bought from him some prime swampland in Florida and a bridge in New York City.

Somehow the big story became that “All Access” was staged, as if reality series haven’t been that way forever. Remember, there were two shows in which somewhat attractive women were vying for the love of Flavor Flav.

A Showtime spokesman “no commented” multiple media members. As someone who does PR for my day job these days, that doesn’t surprise me — there’s no benefit in the network saying that its superstar boxer lied, and there’s no benefit in saying that Mayweather was telling the truth.

Of course, if the commission really cared about the important thing, which wasn’t the marijuana but rather the safety of sparring boxers, it could’ve had Mayweather under oath or sought to subpoena the unedited footage.

Perhaps this hearing was meant to call Mayweather to the carpet to make sure such things never happen again. I doubt that message was sent. These things just won’t happen on-camera. In the hearings I’ve listened to, some commission members are at times too friendly with some fighters, a courtesy it doesn’t give to others.

With all the money that Mayweather brings the state, it’s not at all surprising that the commission treated him softly.

6.  Speaking of the Nevada Athletic Commission, my friend Adam Abramowitz of the Saturday Night Boxing blog penned an open letter that he sent to the commission last week.

Abramowitz examined past scorecards and has come to the belief that judge Robert Hoyle, who had that eyebrow-raising 119-109 card for Mickey Bey in Bey’s split decision win over Miguel Vazquez, has shown a tendency to have out-of-whack scorecards favoring boxers who live in Las Vegas.

It’s an interesting read and can be seen at http://bit.ly/adamhoyle

7.  How long has Roy Jones been fighting? A timeline using baseball player Derek Jeter for the sake of perspective:

Fall 1988: Roy Jones Jr., at the time just 19 years old, gets robbed of a gold medal in the Olympics. A teenaged Derek Jeter begins high school.

Spring 1989: Jones turns pro.

1992: Jeter graduates from Kalamazoo Central High School in Michigan. He is drafted sixth overall by the New York Yankees.

1993: Jones tops middleweight Bernard Hopkins by unanimous decision, wins his first world title.

1995: After working his way up through the minors, Jeter makes his Major League debut with the Yankees. Jones defends his world title in a second division, super middleweight.

Fast forward all the way to late September 2014: Jeter plays in his final home game, with retirement looming for the 40-year-old. Jones, who is approaching 46, continues to box with a first-round knockout of hopeless opponent Hany Atiyo.

Since Roy Jones was in South Korea, Derek Jeter started high school, graduated, played minor league ball, had a 19-year Major League career and retired.

8.  Roy Jones has fought three times since Andre Ward last stepped in the ring.

Ward’s last opponent, Edwin Rodriguez, will be back in the ring before Ward. Rodriguez is scheduled to face Azea Augustama on the Oct. 18 undercard to Gennady Golovkin vs. Marco Antonio Rubio.

The guy Ward faced before Rodriguez? That was Chad Dawson, who Ward stopped in September 2012. Dawson’s also been more active than Ward, and that’s even with the yearlong layoff after his one-punch loss to Adonis Stevenson. Dawson will face Tommy Karpency on Oct. 4 for his third bout since Ward.

Ward did suffer an injury in the beginning of 2013. But the inactivity continues thanks to Ward’s ongoing battles with promoter Dan Goossen.

We’re now in October, with no sign that Ward will be in the ring in 2014. It’s a complete shame that one of the best boxers in the sport will have fought just twice since winning the “Super Six” tournament three years ago.

9.  Boxers Behaving Badly: Jason Cook, a boxer from Wales, has been convicted of assaulting and harassing a former girlfriend, according to Wales Online.
 
Cook, 39, was found guilty of putting the woman in a bear hug while they were arguing outside of a nightclub in May, and he pleaded guilty to sending her a number of unwanted text messages after their relationship had ended. He was found not guilty, however, of “one further count of assault in which he was accused of shoving his ex-partner into a wall three times,” the report said.
 
Cook turned pro in 1996, won a European title at 135 pounds, captured the fringe IBO belt in 2003 and lost it in his second defense. He spent nearly four years out of the sport between 2005 and 2009, soon entering the Prizefighter tournament, losing a three-round decision to Gavin Rees. He continued to fight, going 4-3-1, with losses to Ashley Theophane, Glenn Foot and Johnny Coyle, that last defeat coming in a welterweight Prizefighter tournament this past April.
 
He is 30-6-1 with 16 KOs.

10.  Given all the belts in boxing, I’m surprised that Saturday’s fight between cruiserweights Krzysztof Wlodarczyk and Grigory Drozd wasn’t for the Inter-consonantal title.

Drozd ended Wlodarczyk’s actual four-year World Boxing Council title reign with a clear unanimous decision.

I guess that means Wlodarczyk has another L to his name.

Though if we’re to be fair, his 49-3-1 record would make him Krzyzstof Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwlllodarczyk…

“Fighting Words” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com