Adieu, Boo Boo

 

 

 

He looked tired and confused. He looked the way fighters do when suddenly they have no answers. 

"Stop it," he said. 

The television microphones picked up his plea to surrender.

He looked old, too, as any 35 year-old fighter does when he's been punched hard for a few rounds. His corner men hovered around like doting aunts over a sick child.

The self-assurance that was his trademark had been smacked out of him. Had there been a reason for him to be so cocksure in the first place? Sure, he had speed and skill and all the tools. For a short time it had seemed like Demetrius "Boo Boo" Andrade had the world at his feet. Now, the viewers at home were watching his Waterloo: "Stop it."

It seemed a lifetime ago when he was fighting in New England casinos. Back then he was a heralded amateur making careful inroads into the professional ranks. His management was feeding him journeymen and unknowns and he was chopping them up. 

They always fell before Boo Boo in those days. He was quick, like a martial arts master in the movies, the hands a blur. He used to beat those early opponents so badly that they needed help out of the ring, like they were being pulled from the wreckage of a car crash. That's what happened when you fought Boo Boo Andrade of Rhode Island.

When I met him in those days, a few things struck me. He was being managed not by experienced boxing people, but by a mom and pop outfit that seemed like managers of a local ice cream store. They were friendly, but protective of him. They were wary of anyone who might have deep roots in Las Vegas or the dark world of boxing. They'd be happy if they could keep him fighting in small New England venues forever.

The other thing that struck me  was that no matter how humble and well-meaning the people around him were, they were convinced that Boo Boo would be greater than Sugar Ray Leonard and Muhammad Ali combined. He couldn't fail. It was a strange, mixed message - the kid had to be protected, but he was the next icon. They never explained how he might attain this greatness if he never left the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence.

He won some title belts - usually vacated ones for the WBO - but there always seemed to be something amiss. He was inactive for large chunks of time, always on the verge of signing for a big fight, then disappearing again. He fought infrequently, usually in some faraway boxing outpost: Boston, Miami, Manchester, New Hampshire. Keeping him out of Las Vegas was one thing, but his career became ridiculous. When, we wondered, would they ever take the training wheels off?

He never developed a following. He had fans in Rhode Island, but otherwise he was a footnote on the fringes of the sport, a guy with a funny name and a tinpot title belt. But you always had a sense that those people who had looked out for Boo Boo were still telling him he was greatness personified, and that his career was moving along perfectly. "We don't want people to take advantage of him," they'd said. 

I remember the way he carried himself at the beginning. He was a cocky, smirking kid. There was a bout at a Connecticut casino when he sauntered in late for a meeting with the commission. They fined him for being late; he shrugged and smirked. He had a little posse of gym rats and buddies around him. They smirked, too. Here was boxing's next big star, and he was doing a cheap imitation of the clowns he'd seen in gangsta rap videos. His managers would make you jump through hoops to ask a few questions. Once you were alone with him he'd just shrug and smirk and give you nothing.

By 2018 he was busted for illegal possession of a handgun. He said he needed it for his "wealth and fame." Boo Boo had just beaten a Namibian fellow named Walter Kautondokwa for another of those vacant WBO straps. It meant very little, but maybe in Boo Boo's mind he was Mike Tyson.

Now and then there would be a shakeup at the Andrade camp. People were fired and hired, which isn't unusual in boxing. People in his circle said Boo Boo was still the same likable kid, but "the wrong people got in his ear." 

Victor Conte came onboard recently. He's the training guru who served four months in prison for money laundering and selling illegal drugs to athletes.  Conte has supposedly turned his life around, but he has that thing in his personality that we also see in  defense attorneys and used car salesmen. Nothing he says sounds true. 

Conte brought Boo Boo into his California science lab before his latest fight. He measured and probed him like a lab rat. Conte's big on oxygen now. He fits his fighters with special masks and puts them in tents so they can breathe like superman. He told ESPN that Boo Boo was like the son he'd never had. "I'm looking out for him," Conte said. This sounded familiar. People are always looking out for Boo Boo.

In a way, Conte and Boo Boo were a good match. You looked at each guy and thought, "Is he still around?" Conte talked about this fight as a sort of big comeback for both himself and Boo Boo. What a story that would've been, the forgotten fighter and the disgraced steroid salesman, bringing it all back home. 

It was a Las Vegas bout, a pay-per-view main event pitting Boo Boo against David Benavidez, the super middleweight titleholder known as "The Mexican Monster." It was the biggest fight of Boo Boo’s career, his first time in such a lavish program. His first, honest to goodness Las Vegas spectacle. He was also trying out a new weight class. 

He looked good for the first few rounds. He was moving in and out, using all of the old southpaw tricks. He looked fast.

The footwork was fine. His timing was perfect. He wasn't bothered by Benavidez' size or reputation.  When they tussled along the ropes, Boo Boo held his own. The question was whether he could maintain this for 12 rounds. 

It all fell apart at the end of the fourth when Benavidez smashed him to the canvas. A caveman with a war club couldn't have done any better. Boo Boo was hurt.

He got up and survived into the next round, but the tide of the bout had turned. Every time Benavidez hit him, Boo Boo would wobble and wince. The Monster was connecting now.

The sixth was bad for Boo Boo. Benavidez stalked him, rattled him with punches to the head and body. Boo Boo took the shots, but he looked like a man trying to survive an avalanche. He didn't come out for the seventh. Later, with heartbreak in his voice, he said something about not being used to the weight class. He said he'd fight again.

Of course he will. He's still youngish. But it'll be different this time. He'll be repackaged for less money. He'll be back in the New England casinos, only the crowds will be smaller. His fights will be part of weekend package deals. There will be a prime rib dinner, an Eagles cover band in the theater, and Boo Boo fighting some guy you never heard of. That'll get him through a few years, and then he'll complain that he can't get the big fights. We can hear him already. It will always be someone else's fault.

They tore him apart on social media. There's little patience for fallen fighters nowadays. And where Boo Boo was concerned, there was never going to much sympathy after his first loss.

But how you felt about Boo Boo may reflect where you are in life. There was something poignant about the scene in his corner. You may have recalled the early days, when Boo Boo acted like he was destined for greatness. Blink an eye, and he's asking his team to stop the fight. That's how it goes. One minute you're young and full of yourself. A moment later you're done. That's life.

That's life whether or not you had good management. 

That's life whether you fought in Lincoln, R.I., or in Las Vegas. 

That's life for Boo Boo Andrade. 

That's life for you and me.

 

 

Crawford - old school magic

In the second round a sneaky punch from Terrence Crawford put Errol Spence Jr.  on the canvas. It was the first time Spence had ever been down as a professional fighter, and the expression on his face was like that of a child  caught doing something naughty, with all of the inherent guilt, shame, and surprise that you'd expect from a kid who had never been caught before. 

He managed to get up, sheepishly, but there was a sense that Crawford had just shown him who was boss. It was a simple message, sent directly on the wings of a lightning right uppercut as Spence was leaning in. For the next several rounds the same scene continued to play out, with Crawford catching Spence with similar sneaky shots. It was as if no matter what Spence tried, Crawford had a quick answer for him. 

Spence was knocked down twice more in the seventh. By then his face was swollen from Crawford's consistently well-placed counters. The fight was finally stopped at 2:32 of the ninth, with Spence still on his feet but taking too much punishment. The so-called "Fight of the Year," "Fight of the Century," "Fight of the Epoch," was over, and it had been none of the above. Rather, it had been a dismantling. 

There was now hope that Terrence Crawford, a quiet practitioner of this ancient combat sport, would get the recognition that has eluded him. Sure, there were a lot of welterweight title belts  at stake last night in Las Vegas, but the value of boxing belts is dubious these days, even if you have filled a closet with them. For the man  known simply as "Bud," the fight was about being acknowledged as the best of his era. 

Though he showed he could take a loss like a gentleman, Spence proved little else in what was his first defeat in 29  bouts. 

Spence looked befuddled throughout. He was hardly the electrifying battler we've watched for several years. He wast more like a clumsy, outclassed journeyman being led to his doom by a relaxed and confident ring general.

The event was heralded as the first "super fight" of its type in decades, with two undefeated titleholders clashing for dominance. Yet there were some major differences in comparison to big bouts of the past. For one, we weren't bludgeoned daily with announcements of the fighters' paychecks. In the old days, the massive paydays of major championship fights were part of the promotion, so us average Joes at home could speculate about how many punches we'd take for a few million bucks. This time, the paydays were only hinted at, as if to speak of such things was gauche. 

And despite the endless talk about the "importance" of the fight, there was a lack of pageantry going into the contest. Las Vegas had its usual big fight ambience but not more so - a  strangely subdued Mike Tyson oversaw a coin toss to decide which fighter would enter the ring first, and Eminem, a somewhat faded rap artist, accompanied Spence for his ring walk - but outside of Dallas and Omaha, the respective hometowns of Spence and Crawford, the fight was virtually a secret event. Sports Illustrated all but ignored it, placing YouTube celebrity Jake Paul on the cover during fight week. SI lacks the clout it once had,  but putting Paul on the cover shows us where boxing stands at this time in history. 

In a way, it was a fight fan's fight dressed up as mainstream event, as if some Hollywood studio had picked an interesting independent movie and decided to market it like a summer blockbuster. It is not an insult to say Crawford and Spence aren't magnetic personalities. Spence tries a little bit. Crawford doesn't bother. Neither man could liven up a party. Yet for hardcore fans, this was the fight they'd waited years to see. They didn't get the great contest they may have expected, but they witnessed a great performance from Crawford.

It has already been compared by some to the best nights of the two Sugar Rays, Leonard and Robinson, but hyperbole of that type is not needed. Crawford proved himself to be a master of his profession, a brilliant strategist with a magical right hand. Comparing him to Ray Robinson would probably embarrass the man.

"I showed poise, I showed smarts, I got the job done," Crawford told ESPN after his victory. "They've got to give me my credit now. '"  

If anyone thinks Crawford created some kind of blueprint to defeat Spence, they'd be mistaken. To understand that Crawford beat Spence with perfect timing, finely parceled aggression, and with a right uppercut that seemed guided by the gods is one thing, but to try to execute that strategy yourself is quite another. Any opponent thinking Spence is now an easy target would be wrong, and they'd probably be whipped if they tried to emulate what Crawford did on July 29 at the T-Mobile Arena.      . 

In a period that broadcasters obnoxiously refer to as "the four belt era," Crawford has won belts from all four sanctioning bodies in two separate weight classes, an impressive feat that almost makes one forget how stupid it is that the boxing business has become so fractured.

Crawford's greatness has nothing to do with the gimcrack belts draped across his body, but everything to do with his style. Few fighters have ever  terrorized opponents with such basic  execution of the fundamentals. Alexis Arguello used to do it. And Marvelous Marvin Hagler. And yes, Robinson. Crawford is a throwback. He's like a fighter from the distant past, coming back to show a new generation how to do this thing. He's 40-0, with 32 knockouts. He's won his last  11 in a row by KO. He will be 36 his next birthday. We probably saw him at his fighting peak last night.

Spence has already talked about a rematch, but he's a brash young guy.  Crawford would beat him again. Besides, the contest didn't really elevate the sport to any degree. To the general public, it was just another fight. A run-of-the-mill UFC show that took place in Utah on the same night trended longer and higher on social media. If Crawford is the king, he reigns over an empire that has seen better days. Yet  his victory will be remembered by those who saw it. It was something for the connoisseur. Long live King Bud.

- Don Stradley

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earnie

 

 

You might've seen him at one of those  two-bit memorabilia shows at a local armory,  or  the International Boxing Hall of Fame annual dinner. He'd stand out. He looked like the strongest man in the room.

He was as amiable as any ex-jock on the autograph circuit, greeting well-wishers with a surprisingly soft voice.

He was always on the hustle then, peddling his memoirs and his VHS tapes. The shoulders and long arms gave him away. His arms looked like the guns on an old battleship.

Sometimes younger fans didn't recognize him.  You'd say, "That's Earnie Shavers. The best puncher of all time." 

The name wouldn't register. Surely, they'd say, he didn't hit harder than Tyson. 

You'd explain about knockout ratios, and the time Earnie put Larry Holmes on the canvas and was just a few clicks away from becoming the heavyweight champion. You'd talk about his fight with Ali at Madison Square Garden, and that even though he lost a 15-round decision, his every punch seemed to make the walls of the arena quiver.

Earnie was in his 50s by now, but like a lot of ex-athletes, seemed too powerful for the surroundings, like he might rip off his clothing at any moment and lope out into the night.Yet he signed everything put in front of him.  For Earnie, the lines were always nice and long. 

Earnie never won a championship, but he had something almost as good if not better: a sense of mystery. How did he do it? How did he hit so hard? He had the gunfighter mystique: it was was always high noon when Earnie was in the ring. It was either you or him.

There's no doubt that Earnie's right hand, when it landed, was as destructive as any punch ever thrown in a boxing ring. There was a stretch between August 1970 and June 1973  when Earnie rang up 32 consecutive wins, all but one ending with his opponent splattered on the canvas. "Sometimes," he once said of hitting a rival, "I can feel the flesh separating from the bone." 

Then he was matched against Jerry Quarry, already a bit washed up. When Earnie was stopped in a round, a new image prevailed. Earnie's better opponents knew they had only to wait him out, to let him launch his bombs, and then lay into him, usually resulting in the  game's hardest hitter face down on the canvas. He became one of boxing's great "If only" stories. If only had had a better chin. If only he had a better  defense, more stamina. Shavers was the stone upon which other fighters sharpened themselves. Boxing historian Jim Jacobs once said that Earnie was the most dangerous man in boxing for 15 minutes.

Earnie admitted his shortcomings. He told journalist Howard Brunt, "Because I could punch so hard, all the trainers wanted me to do was improve on my punching, not on my boxing skills. I never became a complete boxer, a complete fighter." 

Yet his admirers were all on record when it came to the shear bludgeoning power of his right hand. Holmes described the punch that dropped him as, "a blinding flash. I was sure a photographer's flash bulb had gone off right in my eyes." Ali claimed Shavers hit him so hard that he "shook up my kinfolk back in Africa." 

Earnie lingered on the fringes of the sport long after he should've retired. The money he'd earned by fighting was long gone, carved up by five divorces and nine children. He seemed to be another sad boxing story in the making, a man with impaired vision and no money. He surprised us, though.

For years he enjoyed success on the autograph circuit. He was a man of God now, a fellow who only wanted peace of mind. His favorite story to tell was about finding salvation in a small church in Ohio. "The minister preached that worldly values never pay what they promise, and I said to myself, How well do I know."

The funny thing about Earnie was the sense that he was telling tall tales. He presented himself so humbly that he was able to spread a good line of BS. 

He talked about his contract being owned by Cleveland mobsters, and million dollar ventures that never came off, all of which may or may not have been true. He talked about being in demand as a motivational speaker, though he never mentioned that many of his appearances were in shabby venues for tiny or non-existent audiences.

He also spent a lot of time in England where, to hear Earnie tell it, he was nearly as famous as Ali. If it seemed he was exaggerating, he probably was. 

His most unlikely revelation was that Don King kept him on a payroll that amounted to $200,000 per year. It was easier to believe Earnie had daily conversations with God than to believe King treated him to an astounding retirement fund. But he seemed so happy in retirement, no one dared burst his bubble.

Was Earnie revising his third act? Maybe. Why not? It was his story to tell. He wanted us to think he was rich, friendly with God and Don King.That was better than being thought of as a fighter  who tired out after five rounds.

Earnie Shavers died recently, one day after his 78th birthday. He died in the South, at the home of one of his children. He'd been a Cleveland fighter, but you wouldn't have known by the scant coverage in Cleveland newspapers. A few boxing websites gave the story some brief coverage, a paragraph or less.  Social media was a little better, with many of his old admirers posting clips of his best moments: the staggering of Ali, the wrecking of Jimmy Ellis and Ken Norton, the street war with Ron Lyle, and the time he put Holmes on the canvas.

It would've pleased Earnie to know they wrote about his punch, and also his second life as a motivational speaker. The stuff about his later years may not have been true. The punch was real, though. The punch is what we'll remember. 

*

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THE BIG FAREWELL: Pacquiao Retires

 

His nickname was “Pac-Man,” though he should’ve been called the Muhammad Ali of the Pacific Rim. Such was his image: a larger than life figure who elevated the Philippines with each of his stirring victories. 

 

From the night in 2003 when he entered the Alamodome to challenge the already legendary Marco Antonio Barrera, Manny Pacquiao seemed hell-bent on scaling one career peak after another. An embarrassing generation of heavyweights had made it possible for men weighing no more than jockeys to captivate boxing audiences as they’d not done since the Great Depression. It was once again the small man’s moment; hungry for fame, Pacquiao soared. By 2009 he was boxing’s most reliable star. By 2012 he was an international name and a Philippine congressman, and by the time he announced his retirement this month he was an institution. It is probably true that Pacquiao did more to put the Philippines onto the world’s radar than all of the great Filipino fighters before him combined.

 

When he recently said farewell to boxing at age 42, Pacquiao shared with Julio Cesar Chavez and Roberto Duran the rare distinction of being a foreign fighter beloved in the U.S. To a stubborn minority of fans, Pacquiao was a spotlight hound, plagued by enough controversies to sully his smiling image – unproven steroid accusations,  political connections of dubious merit, and a grab-bag of excuses when things didn't go his way,  everything from mysterious injuries to ill-fitting socks. But to the majority, Pacquiao was a kind of genius: a wicked southpaw puncher, a crafty boxer, always prepared to fight (unlike Duran), charismatic and charming (unlike Chavez), and perfectly attuned to what the customers wanted from a champion. 

 

Pacquiao’s reputation was not made by promoters and could not have been. In an era when fighters were at the mercy of networks, Pacquiao flew through boxing like a meteor, forcing the world to follow him in a lightning game of ‘catch me if you can.’ A short fellow with a wispy mustache who could barely speak English, he was hardly the debonair sports figure preferred by segment producers, yet his presence howled at us through television screens – we saw his frustration during tough fights, the joy he took in his own dazzling footwork, the satisfaction he took at his own perfection – and he reached across a mass medium in ways few fighters do, pounding his gloves together, smiling, weeping, wincing, scowling. He was like an opera star,  his every gesture reaching out to the cheapest seats. 

 

His style seemed reckless, designed to sweep across rings and leave opponents disoriented before they were socked to the canvas, but what gripped his audience was Pacquiao’s ravenous appetite for battle. Even late in his career when he had slowed down he still looked like a predator smelling blood. At times his combinations seemed awkward, but in the middle of these sloppy displays came the pinpoint left hand, a round of lazy fireworks capped off by a single live grenade. The knock against Pacquiao in the early days was that he lacked sophistication, that he was nothing more than a feisty guy who enjoyed a good scrap. Yet when his prey was cornered, the execution was swift and exact, as if he’d gone from being a berserker swinging his sword to a cold, professional assassin. Pacquiao became all the more intriguing when we learned of a member of his posse whose job it was to ward off evil spirits.

 

This belief in hoodoo followed Pacquiao throughout career. It was even revealed that a dozen or so of his camp followers were positioned around his bed as he slept, the idea being that if a succubus found its way to Pacquiao’s hotel room, it would become confused and sink its fangs into the throat of a mere sparring partner rather than the beloved international boxing star. He may have been fighting in American football stadiums and living like a raja, but he was still the ragged boy who grew up in the Philippine slums, a man who attended cockfights and believed in ghosts. This is why there were stories of his countrymen, unable to afford shoes for their children but gathering on fight night, watching the action on a TV attached to a car battery. They lived vicariously through their champion whose life seemed magical. If an evil entity dared to get near Pacquiao, his fans would’ve torn it to pieces and had their hero ready for church on Sunday.

 

As displayed across 72 professional bouts and nearly as many amateur contests, Pacquiao’s raison d'être was to please crowds. “I just want to make the people happy,” Pacquiao said after his fights. He was a ham at heart, often appearing on talk shows to sing old pop hits - the high point may have been when he joined Will Ferrell for a duet of John Lennon's 'Imagine,' Pacquiao's schoolboy earnestness almost palpable. He also starred in a handful of cornball action flicks, including one where he wore a Captain Marvel cape and saved the planet. We knew members of his camp by name, and we even knew his wife, Jinkee, by sight. There were Pacquiao toys and dolls, purchased by grown men. The latest news is that he plans to run for president of his country. No one is surprised. This was no ordinary boxer, though his story had traditional boxing tropes: growing up in extreme poverty, achieving fame and glory, suffering some crushing defeats, overcoming personal problems, and then the later years, punctuated by comebacks and miracle wins. Throughout, he kept a twinkle in his eye, like the night he was receiving his prefight instructions in his dressing room and interrupted the referee to ask, “If my opponent is down on one knee, can I hit him?” When told no, he looked into the camera and winked. No matter the heights he reached, Pacquiao always seemed like a street urchin who had broken into a candy store, tossing the goodies to his pals outside.

 

Like most fighters, Pacquiao overstayed his welcome, and recently he lost to an opponent he would’ve blown away just a few years ago. In the 2010s, a less vicious Pacquiao emerged – he was so proud of his increased ring savvy that outsmarting opponents became preferable to knocking them senseless. But his admirers will always remember his string of knockout wins in the 2000s, when it seemed like sparks were flying from his gloves. The drama came from our fear that this funny little fellow might walk into a punch, as he did on occasion, his style of diving towards an opponent seeming more suicidal as he took on larger men. He was like a tightrope walker; there was always a feeling of relief when he got to the end of a fight without falling to his doom. 

Whether he belongs at the same table as Ali or Ray Robinson is irrelevant. At a time when boxing needed a new superstar, he planted his flag in the ground and declared himself the man to watch. There were other great fighters in the past few decades,  but few were as fun as Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao, whose roaring left hand and impish smile provided a small amount of light in an increasingly dark new century.

 

- Don Stradley

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

Anthony Joshua stood in his corner, his back to the ring, resting his head across his forearms. If the great artist Auguste Rodin had wanted to sculpt a figure and call it "The Colossus in Defeat," this was the pose. 

It was near midnight, British time, in Tottenham Stadium, September 25, 2021, a bit less than eight  years to the day of Joshua's professional boxing debut, when he'd come from the Olympics with a gold medal and an aura of burgeoning greatness. He'd need less than a round to beat a fellow named Emanuel Leo that day at the 02 Arena. In more recent times he has looked anything but great. He's just one of many reasonably talented heavyweights at work today, albeit a rich and photogenic one.

There's no reason to feel badly about Joshua's recent loss. He has earned  millions in his career. It just so happens that a quicker, more determined challenger, the Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk, beat the wealthy champion for 12 rounds and took his title. That's boxing. However...

We're less surprised than we might've been. Joshua was most everyone's pick to defeat  Usyk. He was a genuine heavyweight giant, while Usyk was a beefed up former cruiserweight who had looked lackluster in recent bouts. Yet the loss wasn't an earth shattering upset, not comparable to when Joshua was knocked out by Andy Ruiz two years ago in New York. This time there was only a sense that our doubts about Joshua are fully realized, and shame on anyone who buys into the hype again.

Joshua has been uneven since winning the championship from Wladimir Klitschko in 2017, a rousing bout where he showed impressive grit and courage. Since then, as if reaching the top of the business had worn him out, he has proven to be unreliable, a sort of majestic racehorse that won't run. Not even promoter Eddie Hearn, Joshua's chief supporter, could put a shiny spin on his losing effort against Usyk. "I don't think it was a great performance from AJ," Hearn said. "He looked tired as the fight went on."

Joshua was a gentleman in defeat, saying only that he'd lost to the better man. Despite a rematch clause, there were no loud promises  to return and get his title back. He, too, seems weary of his own hype. 

"I think the rematch is very tough," said Hearn, "but there's absolutely nowhere to hide."

Indeed, Joshua is far too comfortable and famous to fight his way back the old-fashioned way. He also looks less like a great fighter every time he steps into a ring. Usyk beat him by official scores of 117–112, 116–112 and 115–113, while many observers thought the difference was wider than indicated by the ringside judges. Joshua had a few moments of good offense in the sixth round, and was intermittently effective with body shots, but throughout the fight he seemed confused by Usyk's movement, unable to adapt. He was nearly out on his feet in the twelfth, offering only slap-punches while southpaw Usyk popped him at will with straight lefts.

Armchair viewers weighed in with their thoughts after the bout. Most zeroed in on Joshua's lack of focus,  how he appears to have something wrong mentally. Others wonder if he has become too much of a boxer, forsaking the punching power of his earlier days. There's some truth in all of this, but the overriding knock on Joshua is that he is a typical young athlete of the era, built on a scale worthy of Mount Olympus but too pampered to maintain the requisite hunger of a champion. 

Who knows if Usyk will suffer the same consequences. He's scrappy, with a sense of humor, a nice change from the occasionally dour Joshua. There are those who say other heavyweights are better, but the one Usyk whipped on September 25 was the one  recognized as the champion of the world by four different sanctioning bodies. 

The pattern of the fight was discernible from the opening round. Joshua moved about on stiff legs, hesitant to throw his right hand. Usyk, realizing early that he was more nimble than Joshua, chipped away at him with rights. The event wasn't entirely one-sided; Usyk's face was bruised after the bout, proof that  championships don't change hands easily. The only real drama, though, was realizing that the Ukrainian underdog was pulling off an upset.

Joshua's chin, questionable even in some of his best outings, held  up this time. Yet he spent the final moments of his second championship reign against the ropes, on the verge of falling out of the ring. The final bell saved him.

There was a time in the distant past when a new heavyweight champion was major news. The imagery that reporters used in those days, that a new champion was "crowned," while the old was "dethroned," evoked a sense of  historical significance, as if they were chronicling the downfall of a king. With Joshua's loss, there's no sense of a king having fallen. He's just another athlete with more money than he'll ever need. Among his many endorsement deals, Joshua recently signed a three-year contract with a hemp supplier. As the "ambassador" for the Love Hemp Group, he's decidedly less than kingly. Long live the king of hemp.

What Joshua has going for him is British fandom. The Brits are forever loyal to their fighters, and lesser boxers than Joshua maintained strong followings even after some dreadful defeats. There were 70,000 customers in Tottenham. The British will likely buy into their man again. "Keep positive," Joshua said on social media after the bout, "even if the world’s crumbling in front of you!" 

It was a nice sentiment, but one wonders if sentiment is all Joshua has left. 

 

- Don Stradley

 

 

The YouTube Invasion

It's not as if last night's exhibition between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Logan Paul established a new low in boxing. But a promoter would have to work pretty hard to get any lower. 

There was little to take away from the event. Paul, a "YouTube celebrity," failed to make us think he was a star in the making. As for Mayweather, he looked nothing like the greatest fighter of his era, not even a 44 year-old version.  

"You've got to realize, I'm not 21 any more," Mayweather said. "It's good to move around with these young guys."

Paul, who finished the fight on his feet, was ecstatic. "This is one of the greatest moments of my life," he said.

But if going the eight round distance with a certified Hall of Fame fighter was only "one of" his greatest moments, we can't imagine what Paul considers his absolute zenith. Maybe he was more fulfilled  the time he filmed a corpse in Japan's "suicide forest" and uploaded the footage to his YouTube channel. 

As a YouTuber, Logan Paul is the equivalent of the schoolyard creep who eats nasty things on a dare. As a fighter, he's on par with the characters we used to see on Fox's Celebrity Boxing show of 20 years ago, back when one of The Partridge Family kids flailed away at  one of The Brady Bunch kids.

"I don't want anyone to tell me anything is impossible ever again," Paul said. "Everyone can beat the odds and do great things in life."

The crowd at Miami's Hard Rock Stadium may not have known what odds he referred to, nor did viewers at home. Home viewers may have beaten some odds just in seeing the fight;  the Showtime PPV feed was so botched that many spent the night staring at a blank screen. What would they have missed for their 50 bucks? The chance to watch Paul wrap his long arms around Mayweather, and to hear a bunch of loopy Showtime commentators shout BING on those few occasions when Mayweather actually landed a punch. But anyone with money to burn on such a farce can't be pitied. They had to know what was coming.

Paul appeared to be as big as a Viking chieftain, but was content to clinch his much smaller and much older opponent. The fight had no judges, so if Paul was still standing at the end he could claim a sort of moral victory for YouTubers everywhere. And though Mayweather scored with the occasional punch, he was simply too little to hurt the man in front of him. 

A fighter with Mayweather's vast experience was expected to dominate a novice such as Paul and knock him out. When this didn't happen, observers were puzzled. Did Mayweather let Paul survive? Mayweather offered no excuses after the event.

"I had fun," he said.

In some ways, it was like any other Mayweather fight, his opponent tiring as each round passed, Mayweather landing his sneak shots. The difference here was that Mayweather spent more time coming forward, while Paul backed away, a slightly dim mastiff intimidated by a feisty schnauzer. 

Suppose you were Mayweather, and you stood to make millions of dollars to fight a character from YouTube. Sure, you could do as your old rival, Manny Pacquiao, was doing, and fight tough men like Errol Spence or Keith Thurman. But would you really risk your health against such young tigers? Of course not. Add Paul to Mayweather's recent list of opponents - MMA star Conor McGregor, who'd never boxed professionally, and Tenshin Nasukawa, the tiny fellow "knocked out" by Mayweather for what appeared to be a gathering of Japanese businessmen -  and it is clear that Mayweather has become the high priest of novelty boxing.

As it turned out, Mayweather did the right thing by fighting Paul. He made a lot of money and left the ring without a scratch. Also, as it turned out, he looked his age. At times he looked like a man struggling with a King-size mattress. There's talk that he might fight Paul's brother, Jake, who made a scene at a recent press conference by stealing Mayweather's hat. We may be starved for fights, but we don't need another round of Mayweather versus the Paul family.

After the final bell,  Logan Paul did a handstand in the ring. Some observers compared him to Rocky Balboa going the distance with Apollo Creed. Of course, the fictional Balboa was a journeyman who lived in a hovel. Paul lives in a mansion in Puerto Rico and once spent $2 million on Pokemon cards. 

Still, there's no reason to dislike Paul. Perhaps we should get used to his type. We're bound to see more fighters just like him, guys with no real credentials but big followings on Twitter. If Sunday's exhibition draws anywhere close to a million buys, we may see a new generation of boxers born on our social media feeds. In our media-soaked world, being a cheap celebrity may be the quickest route to a title shot.

 - Don Stradley

The Kid Brother

"Marvin is gone," the old woman said, "but I have another son." 

This is Brockton, Massachusetts. Marvelous Marvin Hagler used to live here. 

It is Sunday afternoon, May 23rd, Hagler's birthday. Hagler's been dead for two months, and the little crowd in Marciano Stadium is celebrating "Marvelous Marvin Hagler Day." 

The woman is Hagler's mother, Ida Mae. She has sat by quietly as a series of invited guests stood on a podium and paid tribute to Hagler, the former middleweight champion of the world. During a stifling hot afternoon, she has endured  some off-key singing from a choir, and a lot of talk from local politicians, none of whom were around when Hagler was fighting. A few well known figures from the boxing world dropped by to pay their respects. Those who couldn't make it sent video tributes that played on a big screen. Now Ida Mae is onstage, holding a bouquet of flowers, addressing the small audience.

She seems elegant, but wiry and tough. You think, yes, this is the sort of woman who could've raised Hagler. But now Ida Mae is talking about this other son.

"He has been so helpful to me since Marvin passed on...I  don't know what I'd do without him..."

In the distance one can see Robbie Sims, the half-brother of Hagler. He has spent the entire afternoon on the outer rim of the event, a plain red cap pulled down over his eyes. 

Watch any of Hagler's old fights on YouTube. Watch the Hagler team running to the ring to be introduced. Sims is always up front, clearing the path for his brother, the champion. 

"Marv was captain of the ship," Robbie once told me, "and I was the first mate."

Robbie had a pretty good career. Bob Arum used to call him "the gatekeeper," because he'd fight the middleweights who weren't deserving of a title shot. If they couldn't get past Robbie, they couldn't get to Marvin. When Marvin left the boxing scene, Robbie's career petered out. He spent the later part of it fighting in makeshift rings set up in local restaurants. Relieved of his gatekeeper duty, he spent more time getting high and chasing women. 

The Brockton cops grabbed him one night, shoved him in the backseat of a squad car, and told him point blank we don't give a damn about you or your brother. He spent the night crying in a jail cell, promising God that he would be a better man. 

He ended up in rehab. He cleaned himself up, found religion, felt the hand of God on his shoulder, and went to work as a truck driver. God was good for him. Now he's here, in Brockton, listening to people talk about Marvin.

Very late in the afternoon, the MC introduces Robbie by name. "Rockin' Robbie Sims!"  

Robbie looks startled. A woman takes his arm and guides him to a safe spot one hundred yards behind the stage. He watches the  rest of the presentation from this distance, an anonymous figure in a near empty football field. 

He looks surprisingly thin. His clothes are clean and pressed, but they hang as loosely on him as a scarecrow's rags. He gets bored and starts walking around the field. He walks with a limp, the left leg dragging. Now and then he makes a funny face, or breaks into a robot dance. I keep thinking this is strange behavior for the brother of a legend.

I met  Robbie a dozen years ago at a fundraiser where his brother was signing autographs for charity. Robbie was in a corner by himself, seated against the wall, almost hidden by a large potted plant.

He was visibly uneasy. He asked a photographer to snap a photo of him with Marv. Then he walked out. 

I saw him a week later at the Brockton gym where he and Marv used to train. He hit a bag,  worked up a sweat, talked about old times. He had a lot to say about God and Satan ("The devil always knew how to reach up and press my buttons") and how he didn't enjoy being in public ("Too many voices from the past; too many ghosts"). It wasn't so much an interview as a chance to let Robbie ramble.

When the interview was published, he didn't like it. He said it was strange to read about himself. Yet he wanted 20 copies to hand out to his friends and family. I still hear from people who know him. He's a sweetheart, they say, but weird. He doesn't own a phone.

On Marvelous Marvin Hagler Day, the gathering in Brockton is shrinking. People file out to avoid the crushing heat. By the time Ida Mae gets up to speak, she's addressing only a few dozen local people, her tinny voice echoing around the deserted  stadium. The small turnout is a jarring reminder that Marvin fought a long time ago, back when Reagan was president.

It doesn't appear that Robbie will speak. This is a shame because I remember him once telling me how much he enjoyed being Marvin's brother. 

"My career was over as soon as Marv retired," Robbie said. "It wasn't fun anymore." 

I remember Robbie giggling like a child, telling stories about his youthful days with Marvin, how they would stand together in front of a mirror, posing side by side like boxers,working on the techniques Goody had taught them that day, shadowboxing in total silence so they wouldn't wake up Ida Mae. Now, hot winds blow into his face, making him squint; empty water bottles roll by his feet like tumbleweeds in a dead western town.

"Marvin is gone," his mother was saying, "but I have another son."

Instead of bringing Robbie to the stage, she introduces some Italian fellow, Marvin's driver. 

Robbie stays in the background, looking on. The driver says a few words, unintelligible because of the cheap sound system and the rising wind. And that's it. 

The M.C. thanks everyone for coming. The politicians file out. Marvelous Marvin Hagler Day is over.

At the far end of the field, away from everybody, Robbie starts applauding, putting his hands together for his mother's other son. 

Perhaps he's wondering if life will ever be fun again now that the ship's captain is gone.

 

- Don Stradley