Not All Journeymen take the same Journey

bbboccouk10y ago

I've written another little article, this time about Darnell Boone and Derrick Findley. I have posted it up on my website (http://www.bbboc.co.uk/not-all-journeymen-take-the-same-jour) but thought that I would share here to if that is OK? Not All Journeymen take the same Journey We live in a world where fighters with impressive statistics, backed with no substance or quality opposition, can manoeuvre themselves into title contention (or as proved by the new IBF “World” Heavyweight Champion, Prince Charles Martin) all the way to the biggest prize in sport. The information superhighway allows even the most casual of boxing fan to have immediate access to the fight records and history of every fighter, whether an All Time Great, or an obscure journeyman that once filled in as someone’s ‘Bum of the Month’. With the help of the invaluable archives of Box Rec, we can all look through Martin’s back catalogue and all see that prior to his win over Glazkov, via knee injury, to claim his portion of the heavyweight crown, his most notable triumphs cam against the most mediocre of opposition. Raphael Zumbano Love has a record of 36-2-1 in his native Brazil, but just 1-10-0 win leaving the safety of his home nation. His sole travelling win came in Boliva. Charles stopped him in the 10th, three months later Anthony Joshua destroyed him just 1 minute into the second round. Kerston Manswell ran up a twenty fight unbeaten record before losing to Bermane Stiverne by second round TKO in 2011. Whilst Manswell has mixed in decent company since then, Mike Perez, Cedric Boswell, Ruslan Chagaev, Alexander Ustinov, Deontay Wilder, Tor Hamer and the aforementioned Vyacheslav Glazkov all comfortably beat him since the first reverse as his form has turned to 4-12 in his last sixteen. Prince Charles stopped him in three rounds, the same as Ustinov, and two rounds more than either Wilder or Hamer required. Martin could go on and prove me and any other doubters wrong and dominate the division like Wladimir Klitchsko for the coming decade, but more likely he will follow the Deontay Wilder school of “learning on the job” by defending against low risk, uninspiring opposition. The odds on Martin losing his grasp on the crown as soon as the level of opposition reaches anything above “fringe contender” will be short. But Charles Martin is not alone, he is not an anomaly of the sport, he is the norm. Boxing looks to build fighters into brands, padding their records as the all-important selling point of any fighter. The “O” must not go. You can’t bill a fighter as an unbeatable, monster, a la GGG or Kovalev, if their record shows a surprise slip on a banana skin in their early days when some journeyman wrecked them in a small hall on the way up. Carl Thompson ensured that the Hayemaker was suspected as “chinny” throughout his rise through the ranks to become undisputed Cruiserweight and WBA Heaveyweight Champion. Amir Khan was derailed in dramatic fashion by Breidis Prescott, seen as indestructible and on the fast track to super stardom prior to that night, even when fighting weaker opposition since, the opponents are given a punchers chance. Keeping that unbeaten, indestructible air is important to any fighter that wants to become a marquee fighter, a P4P fighter, a Money Brand. So fighters like Darnell “Deezol” Boone (23-22-4) and Derrek “Superman” Findley (22-18-1) that are used as sparring partners for Gennaday Golovkin can’t be worth much, right? A combined record of 45 wins, against 40 losses and 5 draws suggests that these guys are the very definition of Journeymen, the “have gloves will travel” brigade that simply travel around allowing the home fighter to look good and pad that important unbeaten record. Except that, as with so many things in life, the numbers do not tell the full story. Box Rec allows us to delve a little deeper into these two, on the surface, unremarkable middleweights, and the story behind those records, is anything but unremarkable. I guess the first hint that these two apparent journeymen are not all that they seem is the fact that such an explosive and devastating champion as Golovkin would choose them as his sparring partners. If your intrigue is not piqued by that, then maybe the fact that Boone is ranked as the world # 42 at Middleweight and Findley sits at #61 in the World Super Middleweight rankings of BoxRec might make you wonder how win-one-lose-one fighters have achieved such lofty acclaim. Box Rec allows us to easily check that the combined records of the opponents for Boone and Findley, at the time of their fights were; 566-115-13 for Boone and 554-157-17 for Findley that is a combined win ratio of nearly 80% from their opponents. Boone’s first four opponents all had losing records, of the 45 fighters he has faced since then, 43 have had winning records. TWENTY-ONE of them have been unbeaten at the time of facing Deezol. Five of Findley’s first evelen foe’s had losing records, seeing Superman run up a 9-2 ledger himself, of the 28 of the subsequent 30 have winning records, eleven of them (and three of the first 11) were unbeaten. An incredible SIXTY-FIVE of their combined ninety opponents have lost three or less of their contests. But this is all still just numbers, maybe these two just get rolled out in front of every over-protected, hype middleweight needing an opponent to pad out that record? Let’s start having a look through the names, and see if there is anyone that we recognise. We’ll start with Findley’s notable foes: In November 2006 Findley’s eighth fight came against the Son of God, Andre Ward, losing a shout out decision against one of the current P4P leaders and winner of the Super Six Super Middleweight tournament. His 14th contest, held in July 2008, saw Findley drop and stop current leading Light Heavyweight contender, Andrzej Fonfara in two rounds. Just eight months later Findley retired after six rounds against future “World” Champion and Ward’s fellow Super Six participant, Andre Dirrell, then 17-0. Following four wins, Findley dropped a 78-74 decision to Russian Olympian and stand-out amateur Matt Koborov in November 2010, just three months later Findley would drop a 10 round decision to 20-0 Fernando Guerrero, who would later challenge Peter Quillin for the WBO World Title. March 2012 saw him drop a decision over ten rounds to unbeaten, former Ukraine Olympian, Viktor Polyakov. In the same year Findley registered a quick win over 10-1-2 David Thomas before dispatching a rebuilding Ronald Hearns in two rounds after the son of the legendary Hitman had suffered defeats to Felix Sturm and Erislandy Lara. 2013 saw Derrick drop 14-0 prospect J’Leon Love, 23-3 Curtis Stevens (who would challenge Golovkin for his World Title later that same year, and top ranked contender Gilberto Ramirez who is currently 33-0. The following year followed in similar vein with points reversals to big punching Jesse Hart, making him one of only three of Hart’s nineteen opponents to hear the final bell, and 28-1 Maxim Vlasov, and then an upset win over 14-1 Lamar Russ, before being blown away in a round by Edwin Rodriguez, who was 25-1 at that point in his career with his sole loss being to Andre Ward. Then last year, Findley fought four times, being outpointed by highly ranked 13-0 prospect Arif Magomedov, 11-1 Russell Lamour and 18-0 Australian Zac Dunn. He suffered just his third stoppage defeat earlier this month, being pulled out by the referee in the 7th against unbeaten Maciej Sulecki, it was the Polish prospects 22nd win. It as to be said that Derrick has been in with a huge number of top level fighters and prospects, Ward, Dirrell, Fonfara, Koborov, and Rodriguez are all establish as world class, whilst Hart, Sulecki, Magomedov, Dunn, and Love are top level prospects. It would normally be fair to sit back and admire such a resume as an impressive body of work for any fighter, but lets dive straight into his partner in crime, Darnell ‘Deezol’ Boone. continued....

Comments (2)

bbboccouk

Sorry, quite a few typo's. I'll tidy up in the morning!

10y ago

bbboccouk

continued (2 of 2) After nine outings our hero’s record stands as 6-2-1, when he came up against that man Andre Ward. Whilst Boone was soundly beaten on points over six, in round four he became the first (and to date, the only) man to drop SOG (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osIOBjGbYfY). Boone had taken the “O” from three unbeaten prospect to take his record to 10-3-1 before losing a tight, but unanimous, points verdict to 22-2 Enrique Ornelas, who would later challenge for World honours at Super Middleweight and Light Heavy, as well as points defeats to Sam Soliman and Bernard Hopkins. Either side of a draw with future Arthur Abraham and Genady Golovkin World Title Challenger, the 13-0-1 Lajuan Simon, Boone dropped decisions to 20-1 Anthony Thompson and rising 12-0 future World Champion Jean Pascal. The next recognisable name on the CV was the then 16-1 Curtis Stevens and at that time unbeaten 13-0 Brian Vera, both beat Boone on points, before Boone rebounded with victories over 12-2 Louis Turner and 20-3-1 Calvin Green. Then followed five points defeats in a nine month period to, Craig McEwan (15-0) Current Light Middle World Champion Erislandy Lara (6-0), the aforementioned Edwin Rodriguez (11-0), Jose Angel Rodriguez (14-1-1), Brandon Gonzalez (then 10-0, now 18-1-1 with his only defeat coming against Super Middleweight World Champion, James DeGale). Next up, in April 2010 was a young Adonis Stevenson, then unbeaten with a 13 fight winning streak and 10 knockouts. Boone tore up the script, and the future Light Heavyweight Champion’s unbeaten ledger, stopping the Canadian just seventeen seconds into the second round. A draw against the still unbeaten Lennox Allen (20-0-1) followed, before Boone stepped through the ropes to fight his second future Light Heavyweight Superstar in Sergey Kovalev by the narrowest of margins (76-75, 76-75 and 75-76). A rare stoppage defeat came about to Marco Antonio Periban (another future DeGale opponent and a challenger to Sakio Bika for the World Super Middleweight Crown). Deezol bounced back with two wins, one against the then 10-0 Willie Monroe Jnr, another future GGG World Title Challenger, before a rematch with Kovalev resulted in a second round defeat. After a points defeat to 13-0 Derrick Webster, Adonis Stevenson returned to extract revenge over Darnell with a sixth round stoppage. Next up a draw with 11-0 Morgan Fitch closed out an eventful 2013. Two more knockout victories followed, against opposition with statistically better records, before suffering his 5th stoppage defeat, this time to the top ranked prospect Arif Magomedov. Deezol finished 2015 with 2 more knockout victories to edge his win column one point ahead of his losses column. A career that has seen two bouts with Light Heavy bosses Kovalev and Stevenson (actually scoring a stoppage victory over Stevenson), Andre Ward (including that only career knockdown), Lara, Rodriguez, and Pascal are all World Class fighters. Ornelas, Stevens, Gonzales, Periban, Monroe Jnr, Webster and Magomedov are all Contenders or prospects. Whilst both Darnell and Findley have lost to most of the quality fighters that they have met, the volume of quality fighters that they have faced off is frankly incredible, and the number of prospects that have been found wanting by the always honest pair lifts then above the simple title of Journeymen, these two are still danger-men gatekeepers of the Middle, Super Middle and Light Heavyweight divisions. At 36 and 31 years old and with so many tough miles on the clock, Boone and Findley are reaching the later stages of their remarkable careers, although it would be a brave man who would bet against there being another upset or two sprung on young up-and-comers that are pitted against them. For me, the most fitting end to two such dedicated servants to the sport would be to see one of the powerhouse promotional companies (such as Golden Boy or Top Rank) to pit them against each other in an unofficial “Greatest Gatekeeper of the twenty-First Century” Title Bout at the top of the bill, to repay some of the work these two men have done in providing tests and stern learning nights for some of their prized investments. Maybe the likes of Ward, Kovalev, Stevenson, Fonfara, Lara, Rodriguez, Pascal, Dirrell and Koborov might even put on help fill out the undercard. I would hope that Golovkin will offer his support, he’d make a great celebrity referee. The sport needs the likes of Deezol and Findley, and it would be a great night to see them rewarded for their fearless approach to the hardest game of all.

10y ago