I have a confession to make: I did not experience Jarrell Miller getting his hairpiece knocked off his head in real time, but rather learned from social media a few minutes after the fact about how rough and rugged (and then un-rug-ged) “Big Baby” was.
By the time I was caught up, every “hair raising” and “small price toupee” and “flipped his lid” joke had already been made. It immediately became one of the great regrets of my boxing-watching life, to be unable to take part in this particular only-in-boxing communal delight.
But that is the full extent of my regret over not ordering Saturday night’s “Ring 6” card from Madison Square Garden on pay-per-view.
I’ve watched the highlights and read the recaps, and while I missed an apparently magnificent performance by Shakur Stevenson, and additional impressive showings from Keyshawn Davis and Bruce Carrington, I definitely didn’t miss out on much in the way of entertainment – aside, again, from everything having to do with fake follicle follies.
The fact is, as the 8 p.m. ET scheduled start of the PPV was approaching, I was on the fence, struggling with my game-time decision. But I did not make the purchase, for four reasons:
1. As you’ll see below, I didn’t lack for BoxingScene column material without these particular fights.
2. I didn’t quite consider any of the fights to be must-see – not even the Stevenson vs. Teofimo Lopez main event, which was an elite matchup of profound significance, but a bout I doubted would deliver thrills and had obvious potential to be one-sided.
3. If I can help it, I’d rather not give my money to a promotion that refuses to credential BoxingScene and is trying to stifle independent media.
4. By the time 8 p.m. was nearing, the broadcast had already delayed the start of the Austin “Ammo” Williams-Wendy Toussaint fight by some 25 minutes because the crew had been commanded to wait for Turki Alalshikh to arrive, which increased the likelihood of a main event starting sometime around midnight, and I just knew I had no chance of keeping my eyes open that late.
(By the way, I would like to henceforth be known as “His Narcolepsellency,” please and thank you.)
So, in the end, I didn’t watch the biggest fight or biggest fight card of the weekend. But there’s plenty to write about without it.
Here, without having watched the Ring 6 pay-per-view, are six other angles worthy of miniature columns:
Merchant trades in irony
The Ring magazine held its annual awards banquet on Friday night and streamed it live on DAZN, and I tuned in for exactly one segment: Larry Merchant receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award. A couple of weeks shy of his 95th birthday, Larry wasn’t in attendance in New York, but he recorded an acceptance speech.
If you missed it, it’s posted as an individual clip on DAZN and on various social media sites, and it’s well worth watching – if for no other reason than to see Larry’s face and hear his voice and be warmed to see him still with us and still with it.
But there is another reason it’s worth watching: to revel in the mind-melting irony of the anecdote he relates, about a time he was harshly critical during a live HBO broadcast of a Roy Jones mismatch and of Jones’ long-term contract with the network.
“A few weeks later,” Merchant related, “I bumped into Seth Abraham, the executive in charge of sports at HBO. He put his arms on my shoulders and said, ‘You make my job harder.’ Meaning, negotiating with the Jones team, or any other team. And I smiled. And he said, ‘But keep doing what you’re doing.’
“So my advice to all my old pals out there in the boxing world: Find the guy in your building who gets it. The guy in your building who understands what good television is and gives you a long, long rope.”
That Merchant told this story in the current boxing media climate, where many – not all, but many – writers and broadcasters go out of their way to praise their benefactors and try to convince you that what you’re watching is entertaining, was ironic enough. But that he told it while accepting an award from a media entity owned by the deepest-pocketed promoter in the game, one where Merchant-esque criticism of said promoter does not exist, was truly jarring.
And I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Larry knew exactly what he was saying and who he was saying it to, and how it would land to those actually paying attention.
By the way, this Tuesday marks the 30th anniversary of the premiere of Boxing After Dark, headlined by Marco Antonio Barrera and Kennedy McKinney’s instant classic battle. BAD is long gone, HBO Boxing is long gone, but Larry Merchant is still around, deservedly winning awards, and here’s hoping he’ll be with us, spouting wisdom, for a good while longer.
The styles-make-fights-iest boxer around
The saying “styles make fights” has been beaten into the canvas and then some, but it does often serve as the best way to explain a ring result. And boy does it explain the recent career of junior middleweight Bakhram Murtazaliev.
In the first major main event of a busy boxing Saturday, from Newcastle, England, underdog Josh Kelly took Murtazaliev’s 154lbs belt by majority decision, separating the Russian from his undefeated record in the process.
It was a triumph of Kelly’s talent and determination, to be sure. But it was also very clearly a triumph of style – especially when compared to Murtazaliev’s previous result, his KO3 win as an underdog against Tim Tszyu that established him as the sort of monster whom calculating junior middleweight contenders might be wise to avoid.
It's pretty simple with Murtazaliev: Come straight at him and he’ll obliterate you, but move around him and he’s suddenly not so special.
Tszyu did the former, of course. He was there to be hit, and so he got hit and hurt and disposed of in short order.
Kelly is a more fluid, athletic boxer, and his entire game plan was built around not being on the end of Murtazaliev’s punches. It was difficult to execute to perfection. Kelly got clipped with a left hook in the ninth round and went down, legitimately hurt. He just barely pulled out a win on the cards in his home country, and a draw – as judge Pawel Kardyni had it – wouldn’t have been unreasonable.
But in the end, he boxed and moved just enough to get the better of Murtazaliev, a man whose bouts are as defined by the styles of his opponents as any fighter I can recall.
We’ll do it live!
I’ve touched before on my affinity for wagering on boxing “live,” or “in-play” as some call it, meaning betting on a fight in progress, with the odds being updated every few seconds. I generally find it the best way to make money betting on boxing, as sometimes it becomes clear after a round or two which way a fight is likely to go, and the people or algorithms adjusting the odds are slower to understand what’s unfolding.
I’m including this section in the column largely as an excuse to brag that I made five live bets on Saturday and four of them won – and four was the maximum number that could win, since two of them were incompatible with each other. And of the four that won, three were made at plus-money.
First, in the co-feature to Kelly-Murtazaliev, it was apparent after the first round that Josh Padley, despite just five stoppages among his 17 prior wins, was going to be able to hurt Jaouad Belmehdi. So I bet Padley by KO/TKO/DQ at +150 after the opening round, and I cashed quickly when he stopped Belmehdi at 2:35 of the very next round.
In Kelly-Murtazaliev, by the end of the second round there was no doubt the Brit was a live ’dog, especially with a friendly ref and friendly judges, so I bet him at +350 to win by decision. I then hedged somewhat after Murtazaliev dropped him in the ninth, betting on a draw at +700 going into Round 10. The latter bet didn’t quite win, but the initial one did.
On the pre-PPV undercard of the Ring 6 show, in front of a crowd of approximately 14 early-arriving fans, Kevin Castillo was brought in to lose to Saudi prospect Ziyad Almaayouf, but Castillo didn’t read the script and started putting the “oof” in “Almaayouf” in Round 3. I wish I’d trusted my gut and bet Castillo to win at +700 after that round, but I did finally pounce when Castillo was still somehow +340 after dishing out a beating in the fourth. It was a bet I might not have made if not for the fact that I’d heard Steve Weisfeld announced as one of the judges and recognized that a ludicrous decision in favor of the Turki-affiliated fighter was that much less likely.
And finally, later in the evening on the Top Rank card from San Juan, Puerto Rico, after three rounds between Xander Zayas and Abass Baraou, I was about 80% confident we were headed toward a Zayas decision win, and the live odds had him at -200, too good a value to pass up.
Am I pretty much just following the Floyd Mayweather playbook and bragging about my winning bets while keeping it to myself when things don’t go my way? Yes, I most certainly am. But it doesn’t change the fact that in-play action repeatedly proves the best way to bet boxing.
A hero we can Bank on
I had not heard of Danish super middleweight Jacob Bank prior to seeing him listed as former beltholder William Scull’s opponent Saturday in Kolding, Denmark, but now I’ve heard of Bank, I’ve watched him fight once and he’s already on the short list of my favorite boxers on the planet.
That’s what happens when you (a) make a Scull fight pleasurable to watch, and (b) dominate Scull and stop him with 21 seconds left on the clock, potentially sparing us further Scull fights.
Side note: For some reason the graphic on the screen throughout the fight that indicated which boxer was wearing which color trunks listed “Bank” and “William.” I’m just looking for a little consistency, people. Either first names or last names, but not one of each.
Unless we’re talking about the Wendy Toussaint-Austin Williams fight and you want to put the words “Wendy Williams” on the screen to amuse me.
(Hat tip to my friend David Kushin for that crack. I have a boxing column and he doesn’t, so I hold perpetual rights to use his one-liners in my columns.)
They’ve got issues
On Saturday morning, I woke up to the news that every single print issue of The Ring magazine has been digitized and is free to access via the Ring website.
This is generally good news for any boxing fan who likes to read (which, doing the math, presumably describes you, a person currently reading an article published on a boxing-focused website). But it’s particularly meaningful news to me because my byline appeared in that magazine from 1997-2011, and some of the work I’m most proud of from my relative youth has now become accessible to an audience beyond those who bought print issues 15-plus years ago and saved them all.
Does the re-release of so much of my old writing put a single dollar in my pocket? No, but such are the rules of publishing rights. At least I didn’t sell them the rights to my story about slipping and falling in the mud and ruining the very pants I was about to return.
The arrangement is not ideal, but I will get my financial revenge one un-ordered pay-per-view at a time.
Sportsmanship from A to Z
The main event of Top Rank’s card from Puerto Rico truly spanned the alphabet, prompting me to ask ChatGPT whether Abass Baraou vs. Xander Zayas was the first time ever that an “A.B.” fought an “X.Z.” Actually, I asked: “Has there ever been a pro boxing match between one boxer with the initials ‘A.B.’ and another with the initials ‘X.Z.’?” And ChatGPT said no, not even coming up with the Zayas-Baraou fight, so, we’re safe for now, humanity. AI still can’t be trusted.
In any case, in what I presume was the first fight ever between an “A.B.” and an “X.Z.,” we were treated not only to a damned fine scrap, but also a display of sportsmanship after the battle was over that re-emphasized what makes boxing so special. The deeply felt hugs, the effusive praise of the opponent from both sides, the hard-earned respect that will never go away as long as Baraou and Zayas live – team sports and less violent sports just cannot create these sorts of bonds.
The combination of sportsmanship like this and competitive action like this almost distracted me enough to prevent me from complaining about judge Oliver Brien’s ludicrous 116-112 scorecard in favor of Baraou that made this a split decision.
And it almost distracts me enough to prevent me from getting snarky about Zayas’ new haircut that reminds me of every mom I knew in 1986, with perhaps a dash of prime Nancy McKeon mixed in.
Almost.
Anyway, Zayas-Baraou, which ended before 11 p.m. on the East Coast, was a perfect way to cap my Saturday night. And it streamed for free, meaning if Jarrell Miller wanted to watch it, he didn’t have toupee for it.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with nearly 30 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X, BlueSky, or LinkedIn, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.
