Subscribe now

Thanks for the support.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Hey guys, welcome back to Total Boxing. This is the Tris Dixon Daily and it’s take two because I recorded this and it just disappeared. Anyway, I just wanted to talk a little bit about last night’s fights and a bit about the week ahead. Chris Billum-Smith was obviously stopped by Shev Clark. Chris, who I do know well,

Subscribe now

I don’t know if it was too soon after the Riziki fight or if he’s just had too many hard fights, but he couldn’t really get out of the way of that Shev Clark right hand and paid the price. And Shev Clark buzzed him in the seventh round. I think buzz was Chris’s word afterwards.

And he never really fully recovered, even though Shev Clark missed with a lot of the follow-up shots, you couldn’t really argue with the stoppage. Obviously with my background with damage and everything else, I’d be inclined to say, The stoppage was fine, but I could see why Chris was disappointed at the end

and obviously probably subsequently heartbroken today with the defeat. He’s been on a hell of a tear, really, with the side to the loss to Zerdo Ramirez and, you know, people call him an overachiever and everything else. But whatever he is, he’s had a fantastic career and done extraordinarily well. I’ve got nothing but respect for what he’s done.

And you could take the same thing to Shev Clark, who’s probably been written off by just about all and sundry over the last two, three years. And look what he’s done. I think I remember my son was working for Boxer at a Eubank Ben show in Wembley.

And it was probably the night where maybe Bill and Smith fought Brandon Glanton and Shev Clark. Lost, I think to Vidal Riley and you imagine Bill and Smith was on to bigger things and Shev Clark maybe thought it was the end of the line and now look how the roles are reversed.

I mean, that’s boxing, doing boxing things. Interesting. I mean, I, I’ve just recorded a video with Tundi Ajayi and you can go onto the Total Boxing YouTube channel. I’ll drop a link in the notes shortly. And, um, It’s interesting how boxing works. And one thing I said is, you know,

I could see Chris Billum-Smith coming back against Jack Massey to renew the amateur rivalry in Shev Clark fighting Ryan Riziki in a doubleheader. But whether or not that happens, I don’t know. There’s a sort of zoo for planning that I could see. But we’ll see. Also on that, Bill Denzel-Bentley.

Defeated Shane Mosley Jr. A good fight, fight of the night award from the Zufa show. And Denzil dropped Mosley early in the first couple of rounds and then managed to see out a decision which was close on the cards. It was always going to be close.

Mosley’s a good fighter and he’s been on a good run of form, especially when you factor in the Boachuk win, which was probably a huge shock at the time, I would imagine. But onwards and upwards for Denzel, who’s talked about fighting Carlos Adames and Aaron McKenna, both world champions who are now under the Zufa banner.

And there was a bit of back and forth with Connor Ben there last night and Ben saying that he would welcome a fight with Bentley. So we’ll see how that works out. I’m sure Ben would prefer a money spinner against Manny Pacquiao in Q1 as Zufa are calling it, but we’ll see how that shakes out.

Up in Manchester, and this is mostly what Tundi and I talked about, obviously, Joshua Boazzi and Willie Hutchinson fought for the WBC £175 title. And Willie Hutchinson became only the third fighter from the UK to win that belt, following on from John Conte in the 1970s, Dennis Andrees in the 1980s. And they fought some biblical fights.

Obviously, Conte won the title against Jorge Armuda and fought the likes of Matthew Saar Mohammed. And then Dennis Andrees had that great rivalry with Australian Jeff Harding. And now Willie Hutchinson is up there and he can call the shots. Anthony Yard got into the ring afterwards and they spoke about possibly fighting next.

But obviously, Anthony Yard has also been mentioned by Ben Whittaker and his team. And I saw Frank Warren on a huddle. Interview last week where he was saying that he thought that the winner of Boatsy Hutchinson could go into a fight with Ben Whittaker. So we’ll see how that goes. That will be of interest to me.

I think on Tuesday when I’m at the ratings meeting at the WBC convention in Acapulco, when they start to talk about 175 pound division, because Willie Hutchinson is now the world champion. And Ben Whittaker is the WBC Silver Champion. So it’ll be interesting to see how they talk about who fights whom next.

And just before I leave you, and the first version of this was a little bit longer, it’s fair to say, but I’ve been sent some interview times for this week. And unfortunately, my times for Roberto Duran were in about an hour from now, and I’m leaving the house in about an hour and a half from now.

Maurizio Suleman, William Zepeda and Pitbull Cruz are lined up for the morning before I even arrive. But then on Monday afternoon, I’m due to speak to Julio Cesar Chavez, Tuesday, Katie Taylor, Wednesday, Oshaki Foster, and a few more in between. I’m also hoping to get Robert Garcia and Lester Martinez, but we’ll see how it goes.

It’s obviously a bit of a crapshoot, but Hopefully the ones that I miss today and early tomorrow can be rescheduled. We’ll push them back. If you have any questions for the brilliant Julio Cesar Chavez, let me know in the comments because I will put some great questions to Julio Cesar Chavez, which I’m looking forward to doing

because I’ve never done anything proper with him before. If you’ve seen my top 20 countdown memorable moments, you’ll see that I have done stuff with Duran, but I’m excited to do more. And I will speak to you on the other side from Mexico.

Subscribe now

ICYMI This week

Joshua Buatsi interview

Willy Hutchinson interview

Jack Rafferty interview

Ste Clarke interview

Billy Deniz interview

Alex Arthur Jnr interview

The transcript… Unedited

Hello. Good morning. It’s me. I hope you guys are doing well and I hope you guys are enjoying these short bulletins. Guys, it’s been an interesting 48 hours. I feel like I’m going to be saying stuff like this every time because it doesn’t really stop. There’s a constant flow of work and things that need to be done.

Sadly, in the end of it, yesterday, I didn’t get to get George Groves. I think we will try for tomorrow. If I don’t get George tomorrow for Total Boxing’s YouTube channel, I think I’m going to go for Tundi Ajayi, who I was messaging yesterday, who obviously is Anthony Yard’s coach.

And he is going to be ringside tonight at the fight between Joshua Boatze and Willie Hutchinson, which I’ll get onto in a bit. I’m actually not going to any fights tonight. Not even because I can justify it and say I’m going to Mexico tomorrow, but I just don’t feel that either

of these fights or shows justify the outlay in terms of me being on the ground. Obviously, I might be wrong and I’m referring to the Zufa boxing show as well, but it’s been an interesting week. You guys can see, obviously, with the work I’ve put out with Jack Rafferty, Alex Arthur, Stee Clark, Boatze, Willie Hutchinson,

I’ve obviously done a lot for that Manchester show, but I actually think the show in London is equally good or certainly very strong. And by the way, just about Groves, I think obviously, hopefully we’ll get something tomorrow. His cruiserweight, Lucas Roerig is on that bill, the Zufa bill.

And also one of the reasons why I think I didn’t get George yesterday and I hadn’t realized, but he’s part of the Sky team that’s covering the show tonight. So he’s a busy guy with obviously Lucas on the bill and then working the bill separately.

And just interestingly, um, I swapped a couple of messages with Teddy Atlas yesterday. Teddy is back in the commentary booth for the Solita show on DAZN tonight. So I said, sent him good wishes. I’m aiming to finish up a feature with Teddy today, hopefully ahead of his return to the broadcast booth.

Um, and then I actually had a missed call from Lou de Bella. Um, uh, we played phone tag a couple of times, but I kept missing him. So I need to speak to Lou. Um, Lou, if you haven’t seen, by the way, obviously I know I’ve written an interview on Total Boxing,

but if you go over to the YouTube channel, you can see an interview that’s done really well. It’s like 15,000 views deep for a new channel. And people have been very complimentary to both Lou and myself about the piece. I’m wondering if Lou was phony about the death

of former USA Today writer John Saraceno, who was A top, top, top writer, really good sports writer, excellent boxing writer. And my paths only crossed with John a little bit when we overlapped really at the start of my Time at Boxing News on the staff because USA Today was owned

by Gannett, which owned News Quest, which owned Boxing News. And so John and I banged our heads together a couple of times to see how we could work together and create some kind of content synergy, particularly over Muhammad Ali’s passing, we were sort of talking about what might happen

when Ali passed and how we might prepare for that. But John was always a gent to me and people knew him far better than me. And everyone raves about the type of man that he was. Also, I filed my Hall of Fame ballots. It’s quite interesting.

I think there’s some people on the ballots, by the way, now that just, I can’t believe they’re not in. Brendan Ingle, it just blows my mind. There’s still not one UK trainer. In the Hall of Fame. It’s staggering to me. And I got Brendan onto the ballot and it shouldn’t have to take

that for Brendan Ingle to be on the ballot. A couple of my votes are Israel Vasquez, Wilfredo Vasquez, Mikel Kessler, Darius Mikulczewski. I think they’re all deserving to go in. There’s a couple more that I’ve ticked off as well. There’s some people on that ballot. I just don’t even see why they’re on the ballot.

Sven Oka, I know he was unbeaten, but he had so many hometown decisions. Arthur Abraham, not just that he’s... He benefited from some hometown cities. I just don’t think he’s Hall of Fame worthy. Sergio Martinez is on there. He possibly is. Obviously, that Paul Williams knockout, a huge body of work, including some early fights over here.

Rocky Lockridge, Kelly Pavlik, they’re on it. Sean Porter’s on it. Mikey Garcia’s on it. Mikey Garcia, for me, was a first ballot Hall of Famer if he hadn’t done all the stuff he had jumping up and down and waiting, taking weird fights. Chris Eubanks on the ballot, Steve Collins on the ballot.

And by the way, There is, I’ve alluded to this, but I am looking to do some long form sit downs, boxing life story style stuff on Total Boxing’s YouTube channel. And Steve Collins will be one of my first sit downs. He actually lives near me now.

This is surreal. Steve Collins was up there as my main idol when I was a kid. He now lives two or three miles from me. We’ve been for... Two coffees in our local pubs and it’s wild to me. It’s beyond strange, but it’s brilliant as well. It’s brilliant.

And Steve is really good company and it’s great that he’s out here because no one else lives around here boxing wise. By the way, just a couple of other ticks in boxes for these Hall of Fame ballots. Steve Bunce is on there of Tick Buncey. I think his lifetime in boxing is worthy.

How Bob Canobio, the founder of CompuBox, isn’t in yet, I’ll never know. Same for John Shepherd, who is the founder and owner of BoxRec. Glyn Leach, the longtime Boxing Monthly editor. And Tom Cushman, the Philly boxing journalist, those all got my ticks. There’s a few other contenders and runners and riders in there,

but those were the ones that really stood out to me. And then in the old timers, I’ll only share two, and it’s pretty two obvious ones. Not everyone votes for this. I think you’ve got to be a certain type of boxing buffing to get this paper.

But two of my obvious choices have been Marvin Johnson and Eddie Mustafa Mohammed, two light heavyweight Excellent stars. And you can’t have a Hall of Fame with Matthew Saad Mohammed in, Victor Galindez in, and a couple of others from that generation and not have Eddie Mustafa and Marvin Johnson in. You just can’t do it.

Subscribe now

Marvin was a three-time champ. Eddie, one of the best of his era, obviously had a win over Matthew Saad Mohammed in his career and a win over Marvin Johnson for that matter. I don’t see how you can not have those guys in if you have the others in as well. They made that generation extra special.

Anyway, so on to tonight, Chris Billum-Smith fights Shev Clark. This was a fight that I sort of speculated about, but I soon knew, once it was in my mind, I soon knew it was nailed on. And I messaged the guys at Zufa and I said, is this a fight? And they said, nothing signed yet. But...

I did write it in Total Boxing. You can go back ahead of time. And it was one where I said it was going to come like the Ryan Garner, Jazza Dickens fight, which I also broke ahead of time in a note section of my column.

So keep an eye on those columns and the note sections, because I am breaking stories in there. I’m doing it subtly because I’m not into the clickbait stuff, but this was one I broke ahead of time. And it was just when I started to think logically, who’s out there for Chris Billum-Smith?

And I thought, well, they just fought on the same card. A news guy wanted Jack Massey to get to the Chris Billum-Smith fight. And obviously with Massey being upset by Shev Clark and Billum-Smith and Shev Clark fighting on the same bill, then that It sounds logical, but I don’t think that’s what they were looking at.

Obviously there’s an amateur rivalry there now. I left the Chris Billum-Smith fight with Ryan Rezicki in Bournemouth earlier this year thinking I did not want to see Chris Billum-Smith box again. I’ve been at so many of his fights where he’s had hard fights and I know

that he’s not a man who wants five Bentleys on the driveways, Porsches, Lamborghinis. He has modest means and he doesn’t want the earth. He just wants to be comfortable and sat with his family. At Cruiserweight, there’s not many fights that can do that. And I kind of felt, unless he fights a Benavidez for a seven-figure purse,

I don’t see the point in continuing. Maybe this is me overreacting. I just didn’t want to... He’s taken a lot of shots. But... Shev Clark has not dazzled as a pro. He’s found the going quite tough. And this is a really interesting fight.

And I will go so far as to say in my head, it’s a 50-50 fight, but actually I could see why people would make Bill and Smith a slender favorite, but I would actually think about making Clark the slender favorite. However, It’s a very hard one to pick because when it was first made, I thought,

you know what, Shev might have that. But then when I think of Billum Smith and how disciplined he is, how he works, I’ve looked at the weigh-in and the press conference stuff this week as well. And I look at how measured and experienced he now is on these big stages.

I actually think Chris is going to do it. And I think he might get a stoppage late, but He might have to climb off the deck. Could be an interesting, thrilling fight. I’m going to have two screens open while I’m at home today. This is how I’m going to work, cover the fights or watch the fights.

I might not cover them, but watch the fights. And obviously elsewhere on this build, by the way, Denzel Bentley. And if you guys haven’t seen my Built Different show, we’re about to take a Um, a season break from it. We’ve just had six episodes out. Denzel Bentley is on it in the current one.

So you go to the, go to the built different YouTube channel and it’s me training with Denzel Bentley. We trained for two and a half hours and it was rank and you can see me pulling up in it. I actually got spasms in my abs during the workout

and you could see these lumps coming out of my abs. Um, But yeah, that was interesting. But Bentley is in great shape, fit as a fiddle. He was obviously the middleweight champion of the world when we filmed it. He’s no longer the middleweight champion of the world with the WBO.

And I think, well, he’s going to have his hands full with Shane Mosley Jr. Shane Mosley has that great win over Serhai Boachuk. And it’s a real, I don’t want to say live underdog, again, 50-50 fight. It’s a cracking fight. Denzel is one of the nicest guys in boxing.

If you haven’t read the Don McCray piece with Denzel from earlier in the week, I’d implore you to go back and read that as well. Really good about getting to the crux of the Denzel Bentley story. Couldn’t recommend it highly enough, but I’m going to edge towards Shane Mosley for that one. I am in a minor upset.

And then over in Manchester, I suppose, at the top of the bill, Joshua Boazzi, Willie Hutchinson. It’s so interesting because when we had that fight before, we didn’t need to see it again. Boazzi won in decent fashion and that was it. We all move on. But we got the rematch.

When the rematch was made, you kind of thought, well, why are we getting this again? But then they’ve been able to add the WBC World Light Heavyweight title to it. It’s changed everything. And I think the more you look at it, you see Joshua has run a form since.

He’s gone life and death in that hell of a fight with Callum Smith. He seemed to come out of the Zack Parker fight with a decision win that people didn’t think he merited. Willie Hutchinson has blasted out Mark Jeffers and beat Ezra Taylor. So they’re in very different form and everything’s changed from their fight in 2024.

To the point now where obviously people are now calling this a 50-50 fight and people are saying that they can make the case for Willie to win. And you can, you really can. And, you know, I know people who’ve been very strong about Willie Hutchinson’s talent all the way through.

But then you also look at Joshua Boazzi winning a medal at the Rio Olympics. And it’s not like he’s cannon fodder, is it? He’s only lost that one fight to Callum Smith. And the title is on the line. Like, it’s a fascinating fight. Really, really good.

And based on not much in particular, apart from maybe the first fight, I’m coming down on the side of Boazzi. But it’s not a certain pick by any stretch. And I don’t think he stops Willi. And Willi could outwork him. But I’m going to go for Boazzi. But it’s tough, very tough.

Obviously, I’m not trying to cover myself. It’s just a cracking match. So you could see how it would go the other way. I know Lee Eaton, by the way, thinks that the fight between Jack Rafferty and Havana’s Marta Ostian could steal the show. I’ve also heard people talk about Zach Miller and Gulley Power being

the possible fight of the night on that Manchester bill. I’ve also written a piece on Billy Dennis, by the way, along with Alex Arthur Jr. and Steve Clarke. And by the way, I was offered interviews with Brad Ray and Ezra Taylor, but they were on the days when I actually went off and did the high rocks

with my son. So I couldn’t do them. But Brad Ray’s a great character. He’s obviously best mates with Connor Walker, which is a great little boxing friendship. So yeah, some really good fights tonight. And I can’t speak with any certainty, but if I was putting on a betting triple, which I would never do, I would go to,

say, Bill and Smith late stoppage. Shane Mosley points. Boatsy points. But there’s as much chance of me going 0 for 3 as there is 3 and 0. But yeah, there we go, guys. By the way, the WBC convention, I went there... I’m going there expecting to get some of those big names I mentioned,

Chavez and Duran, some of the Hispanic greats. I’ve subsequently seen that also Lester Martinez, the hot super middleweight contender, is going to be going out there. Robert Garcia, the trainer, is going to go out there. So everything that I write from that will be paywalled and put behind the paywall here on Substack.

So guys, I hope you are looking forward to that content. I’m certainly looking to fill my boots out there in... I’ll be back tomorrow after a night of huge fights, wherever you are. I hope you enjoy them. Let me know in the comments below how you think the fights tonight will go.

Be interested to know your thoughts and reasons as well. And yeah, have a great weekend, guys. And if you aren’t subscribed to this podcast, hit subscribe. And if you are enjoying everything and you’re a free subscriber, just click on that paid subscription one. Pay £8 a month and just have a look behind the paywall.

Peek behind the paywall and see all the stuff and have a read of a couple of the longer pieces. I’d love you to check it out. But I hope you guys have a great weekend and I’ll be back soon.

[Welcome to today’s episode of me] talking into my laptop or more pertinently speaking to you individually. Enjoyed yesterday. Appreciate the feedback that came in from plenty of people, which was great, including the legendary Don McRae who messaged me. I’d like to do something long form with Don soon. Yeah, it’s been an interesting few hours.

Obviously, I’m all systems go for Mexico on Sunday night. And yesterday was a typical day in the life of a boxing journalist, really. George Groves is now lined up, hopefully, for at some point this morning for an interview for the Total Boxing YouTube channel, which would be great.

Subscribe now

I finished putting together the pieces on Willie Hutchinson and Joshua Boazzi. Both are now live on the Substack. Josh Boazzi is probably one of the most interesting guys to speak to in boxing, if you ask him the right questions. And I think you’ll enjoy the interview that I’ve done with Josh.

One of my favorite sort of, I don’t know, it’s hard to say long, but it is quite a long piece, about one and a half hours of words, but really enjoyed putting that piece together and challenging Josh on a couple of bits on his career. And by the way, while we’re talking about podcasts and output,

Yesterday while I was in the gym, I listened to the latest opening bell podcast with Matt Christie talking to Dr. Neil Scott. Now Dr. Neil Scott was the man who stopped the fight in Saudi Arabia. On Saturday night, and I want to say the controversial stoppage in Saudi Arabia on Saturday night, but it really wasn’t.

And when you look at Dr. Neil Scott, his credentials, there’s probably no one better to stop a fight in boxing than Dr. Neil Scott. In many ways, it was somewhat amusing hearing the hyperbole around The fight that was stopped, it was Ricardo Blandon who stopped against Raphael Espinoza. And facial wounds are Dr. Scott’s bread and butter.

And I put something on social media on the night saying he’s a maxillofacial specialist because I spoke to him for damage. And while I know I have prior knowledge of Dr. Scott, his achievements, his accomplishments and what he does as a pro, I don’t know everyone at ringside every time,

but I did recognize that he was the man calling the shots and he was the one who stopped the fight. And then obviously I heard the outrage that subsequently followed. Now go and listen to Matt Christie’s opening bell with Dr. Scott and it just tells you everything you need to know about many things,

but also including the media, jump into sensational Conclusions with the boxing media that’s specifying. The likes of Chris Mannix, Malik Scott in the studio and plenty more online had a bit of a pile on about the stoppage and it was just so unnecessary. Do you honestly think a doctor is going to wave it off?

For no reason at all. And then, you know, then they were sort of almost questioning Dr. Scott’s credentials. Anyway, I don’t want to say too much more on it, but go and listen to the podcast because it is super interesting. Matt is doing a great job with the opening bell, keeping it going after Alex Stedman left.

And yeah, I think it’s A, worthy of support, B, worthy of your time and C, go and listen to this particular episode today. And then maybe go back and watch the fight or the end of the fight and just think, you know, being armed with the knowledge of what Dr. Neil Scott is professionally.

Subscribe now

And then you’ll just be like, you’ll be shaking your heads at some of the stuff that was said. It was frankly ludicrous. But yes, I’m hopeful to get George Groves today. And when I said yesterday was typical, It was in the sense that, so here it is. I had Diego Pacheco set up for 4.15, Lauren Price 4.45.

I got a message from Ed Roth at Boxer earlier in the day when I was at the gym saying, Lauren is now going to be driving home at that time so she can do a phoner but can’t do video. So I said, oh, let’s kick it back to next week when I’m in Mexico and she can be

in front of a camera. We’ll do one. And that’s fine. We’ll delay it. So that was the 4.45 postponed. And then the 4.15 with Diego got to about 4.25 and I messaged Anthony Lever at Matchroom and I said, am I still waiting for this? Is this still happening?

And anyway, I thought it was going to be like a normal sort of 10 minute slot. And 25 minutes later, I’m sort of having to wrap things up with Diego. And I was very grateful, obviously, that the Lauren Price interview had been kicked back.

I must say, I’ve not spoken to Diego Pacheco before, but I was super impressed. And he gave me such good stuff. And I’m looking forward to A, writing it and B, probably try and put out the whole video next week. It was really good. He was really interesting. And he was into it.

Like, I don’t know if he’s like that with everybody. Maybe he is, but... He really wanted to tell the story. And yeah, it was 25 very brisk minutes. It does add to my workload for next week. So I’ve got several things that I’m working on.

I’ve got some more Teddy Atlas to work on following the first interview recently. I’ve got Vidal Riley for next week. And obviously, Diego Pacheco. Who else have I got? And I’ve alluded to it. In the chat yesterday, I got Emmanuel Odiasi, the German heavyweight. He’s actually from the Midlands, but fights out of Germany.

And that’s coming down the pipe as well. So those are in the bag and ready to work on. I’m obviously planning on working on a bit on the flights and getting out to Mexico. I’ve been looking at the agenda ahead of next week

where it looks like I actually feel like I might have been able to fly back a day early. I think everyone leaves on the Friday and I’m booked to come back on the Friday night. But really the Monday, people arrive on the Sunday, I get there Monday morning.

Then Tuesday is a big day with the ratings and everything else. That’s really the biggest day. And then Wednesday, there’s other meetings and some of the medical stuff. Thursday, it’s a bit of a taper day and there’s a couple of more parts of the convention and then Friday, everyone leaves.

But Thursday, I think will be sparse and it will be, it’s really going to be about the Tuesday and Wednesday, possibly the Monday night and grabbing who I can there. I’ve actually been chatting to Lee Eaton as well at Queensbury and we fly out

on the same flight. So I think Lee doesn’t do much and hasn’t done much. So if you’re interested, let me know and I’ll do a Q&A with Lee and put something out next week or the week after I might be able to hold it. Because that’s part of the plan really is to...

Not just cover all the stuff live and be at the ratings for you next week, but obviously to bring back some work and to speak to some of the, I was going to say some of the big names, but it’s not always the big names that I target,

but obviously I’ve asked for time with Julio Cesar Chavez and Roberto Duran. I am optimistic about getting them. Like I said yesterday, there’s not loads of media that goes to these things. So hopefully I’ll be able to sort of help myself and have things lined up, which would be super helpful.

Subscribe now

And that’s part and parcel of going to these conventions. Like I said, when I was like a, I don’t know, steadfast determined kid, I was like, oh yeah, you can’t go to a convention and support. These money grabbing, sanctioning bodies. And now I think, you know, it’s like, what a place to go to get these plague people.

And I don’t mean Mexico or Kiev or Hamburg or Vegas, wherever I’ve been before, but I just mean like it is a feeding frenzy for content. And it just makes absolute sense to go, particularly now I’m doing what I’m doing as a freelancer. We’re going to somewhere where there’s not going to be loads of competitors,

where I’ll be able to have some time and space to write stuff and work on stuff and bring in video. Yeah, so I’m interested to see how it goes and optimistic. So yeah, that’s kind of where we’re at. So today I’ve got a meeting with the guys at Profenix who power Total Boxing.

That’s at 1 .30pm, I’m actually doing a short interview for someone at The Economist at 11 o’clock about the AJ Fury stuff. I was on the Aria Hawane show, the one that he does with the boxing journalists with Najee the other day. So you can find that. I think that’s on Amazon Fire. So I did that.

And I’ve also spoken to the publishers about the PED book. And one of the interviews I did recently, which I was really happy with, was with Tim Hallmark, who Is Evander Holyfield or was Evander Holyfield’s strength and conditioning coach? Like if you look up Tim Hallmark on YouTube and Holyfield,

you’ll find some of their old school vignettes, which are really good. Like he was pioneering stuff at the time. Everyone was talking about Evander being crazy doing S&C and it’s just hilarious now with hindsight. But still, so all systems go on that. But yes, I’m hopeful that the George Groves interview will be coming. Your way later on.

I’ll obviously post it in the notes if it does go up. And then aside from that, obviously Boatsy’s up. I’d implore you to go and have a look at that. And also just give me some feedback, guys. Let me know if you’re enjoying these check-ins, these sort of daily voice notes.

Let me know what you’d like to see on the site. Give me some feedback. What have you enjoyed? The kind of stuff that you would like to see. Maybe the stuff that you’d like me to get from the convention. But really open to having dialogue with you guys, and I hope you enjoy these check-ins.

I’m really hopeful, by the way, that they’re going to be, I was going to say dynamic. That’s still going to be just me next week, but I’m really hopeful there’s going to be a lot to talk about next week. I don’t mean taking 30, 40 minutes of your day,

but just I’m hoping the days are going to be slammed with activity and news, notes, gossip, all sorts. But yeah, that’s it for today, guys. Really appreciate you taking the time to check in and speak to you tomorrow.

Leave a comment

Hey guys, I’m going to do something a little bit different here. I’m going to take you behind the scenes of what I’m going to do at Total Boxing and give you a pretty much daily glimpse into what’s going on, not just in my world, but the boxing world.

And I’m going to talk to you about the content that we’ve got coming up, but not in a salesy way, just about what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, how I’m doing it. And it’s come to me just because I just feel like I want to make a bigger connection

with the people at Total Boxing and subscriber base that we’ve been building. And it’s been quite, it’s been a wild start. It’s been a wild transition for me to go from boxing scene and being on a treadmill of news to doing what I’m doing.

And I think what I’ve tried to do, and you can see it by the comments, by the way, which have been really encouraging on Total Boxing YouTube channel, is I’m trying to create a safe space for fighters, trainers, managers, promoters to tell their stories and without delusioning them with clickbait headlines.

Trying to bury them, trying to sort of harvest relationships, maintain the working relationships I’ve built over the last, well, I was going to say last few years, the last 25 years, embarrassingly enough. And yeah, so that’s what, that’s really what I’m trying to do. And I’ve got different things up my sleeve,

different plans that I’m working on for different content. I am heading out to Mexico for the WBC convention next week. And I’ve asked for sit downs with Julio Cesar Chavez and Roberto Duran via translators. I’ll be bringing you all the news and notes from the convention, whether it’s from the medical seminars, but also probably most importantly,

The ratings committee, which will be subscriber only content. These first few, let’s say, Daily Dixon voice notes, podcasts will be going out for free. But once I hit Mexico or after a day or two in Mexico, they will be paywalled. And I hope you guys will consider supporting me on my journey.

Through a paid subscription, there’s going to be loads of cool stuff coming up. I see Michael Carbajal’s going out there. Do you know what is a bit touch and go about going to Mexico right now? Because if you look at the travel advisories for Acapulco, it doesn’t look great. But I think the flight into Acapulco is,

there’s a stop on the way at Mexico City. And then we fly on and then it’s a two and a half mile trip to the airport, from the airport to the hotel. And then everything is going to be done from there. So I don’t imagine venturing far off the hotel. I’ll be buried in the conference rooms

and doing the interviews that I can, where I can. And yeah, I’m really, I am excited to go out. I’ve done the WBC conventions in Las Vegas, in Kiev, in Ukraine, and in Hamburg, Germany. They’re an untapped resource for journalists. I think it’s funny, I used to have a very strong opinion about going out to them

and not being seen to support promoters or certainly sanctioned bodies, but it’s just a place to harvest so much rich content. There’s always so many people around and I just think it’s really worthwhile. I think Oshaki Foster’s going. I think Katie Taylor might be going. I’ve heard Dalton Smith might be going.

Obviously, there’ll be representatives from all the promoters going to mistake their claims at the ratings meeting. So that will be great. That’ll be worthwhile. So they’re always a worthwhile trip. They really are. I suppose ahead of that, just to let you know, I’ve swapped some messages with George Groves this morning.

We’re trying to get him on the YouTube channel for tomorrow to talk a little bit about Lucas Roehrig, who he’s fighting on the Zufa show, his cruiserweight. And to talk about Chris Billam-Smith, his old stablemate at the McGuigan’s gym. And then obviously I’d love to pick his brains on James DeGale and the podcast

that went out with Charlie Parsons and Tony Bellew where James DeGale got So there’s plenty I’d like to speak to George about. He’s messaged me back this morning and said that we should be on for something tomorrow morning, which would be good. Kind of a little bit fine, but hopefully we’ll get something there.

And then this afternoon I’ve got interview slots with Diego Pacheco ahead of his fight next week. And with Lauren Price ahead of her return to the ring on the boxer show. Super interesting times. Right now I’m just putting to bed the features with Willie Hutchinson and Joshua Boazzi ahead of their rematch.

I’ve not done anything really on the boxer show this week. The clash is not helpful. They did say I could go up to the media day on the Wednesday and get what I need. But I’ve done a lot over the years with Chris Billum-Smith,

and I don’t know how much more we can add to that as things stand. Although I do think that’s a cracking card with Shev Clark, with Denzel Bentley, and the Zach Parker fight, which everyone’s talking about being in the prelims, but perhaps shouldn’t be.

But I think from standards, you could say it shouldn’t be on the prelims, but... You know, with how Zack Parker fights, you can’t always guarantee putting it on the main show is going to be worthwhile. That’s not criticism, but you know what the paying punters are going to see. I am surprised, by the way.

That Zufa have gone back to the Copper Box so soon after it was criminally empty against Johnny Fisher and they’ve put Chris Billum-Smith in it. Why they’ve not gone back to Bournemouth, the hotbed for this fight, I’ve got no idea. I think commercially, economically, it’s just a much better fit.

I think the last show at the Copper Box for them looked like a disaster. And that was the night that Dana sort of had his implosion with Jack Fig and the other reporters who were asking him about all the AJ Fury stuff. No doubt he’ll be a bit more buoyant this time because he’s announced that he’s got

the co-main on the Joshua Fury bill with Deontay Wilder fighting Jai Opatia, which is an interesting fight. It’s not been the best kept secret, that one. Actually, I’ve been messaging Deontay this week to get on the podcast or to get on the channel as well. And I keep hearing back from him.

He’s on and off, but now he’s got a date locked in. I imagine it might be a bit more difficult to hear from him, but we’ll see. I’ll keep trying. Deontay I go back with to 2008, so... He is usually very good, but we’ll have to see how that goes. But yeah, so it’s a busy day.

So obviously working on Hutchison Boatze stuff, due to speak to Lauren Price and Diego Pacheco later. And then obviously tomorrow morning, George Groves, and then I’m due to fly out to Mexico on Sunday night. So not loads of time. The Mexico thing was only booked yesterday,

although it’s been sort of in the plans for I don’t know, not long, a week or two. A week or two is when it’s sort of being realistic, I suppose, and thinking about it and committing to doing it. And I have been looking at what else is coming up.

There’s obviously Germany for Cabell and the Fight Zone show the day before that with Emmanuel Odiasi, who I’ve already interviewed ahead of his fight. And then there’s Monte Carlo. And I say that there’s Monte Carlo for me because obviously, With everything that’s gone on with me and Saudi Arabia and the Riyadh season, guys,

I can’t get anywhere near any of their fighters or events. So I won’t be in Wales for December the 11th. But what that does mean is I might go to Monte Carlo for the fights on December the 12th and be out there for fight week,

which I think could be a really good fight week to do because everyone will be in Wales. George Liddard will be there with Tony Sims and their team. David Adelaide will be there with Adam Booth. And then Eddie Hearnwood will be there on Saturday, the day after the big fight in Wales, Fury Joshua.

So I feel like there could be a really rich amount of content to get from Monte Carlo. So it might be those, I don’t feel like I’ve done loads of traveling this year, but it might be those will see me through. Yeah, Mexico and Monte Carlo and then start the hibernation program.

I was going to say, but then start coming up with the good content for Christmas and trying to come up with all the good stuff, the written content, some of the archive stuff. And by the way, I mentioned it in notes recently, but I’ve had all my old camera films from America developed.

So all the stuff from the road to nowhere, all my travels around America, all the fights I’ve met, I’ve got all the pictures developed and I’m planning on writing up many stories about meeting the great of the good. Obviously, I know I’ve done stories that you can find through the archive

with Joey Giardello and The Raging Bull, Jake LaMotta, but there’ll be plenty more of those sort of archive things coming up. I’ve just found my pictures with the former brothers and Chico Vajor and I think Chico is one I’d love to do because we stayed in touch. He wrote me a couple of letters after we parted company

and That’s something I’d love to touch upon. But yeah, so there’s loads of stuff coming up. I hope you enjoy this sort of update. I’m planning on them coming thick and fast over the next few days and trying to build something with the audio. And I hope you enjoy it and we’ll be back soon.

Fifteen years ago, the world was a very different place. You didn’t have talk about Donald Trump, pandemics and vaccines. Michael Jackson died, Barack Obama was inaugurated and “Avatar” knocked off “…

Read more

Here is the final rundown of career high spots and memorable moments. As I’ve stated, there is no specific order because I wouldn’t even know how to measure it, although they all standout in their own ways.

It’s been some journey. And hopefully there are a few good things ahead.

Almost made the cut

Watching Floyd Mayweather’s mastery against Canelo Alvarez was phenomenal, and being ringside for Carl Froch’s wars with Mikkel Kessler was brutally memorable.

A trip to the International Boxing Hall of Fame with fight historian and friend George Zeleny probably should have made the list, and it’s worth noting I was at Ward-Gatti 1 and 2, as a fan.

Then there was the time I visited light-heavyweight contender James Scott in prison, going to Hopkins-Trinidad at the Garden with Saad Muhammad, and writing War and Peace with Ricky Hatton.

Part 1 – 20-16

Part 2 – 16-11

Part 3 – 10-6

(Me with Benton and Saad)

5. Meeting Joe Frazier and George Benton in Philly

There was a day, in 2001, when I travelled to Philadelphia (from Atlantic City) with light-heavyweight great Matthew Saad Muhammad and a mutual friend in order for Matthew to catch up with some old friends. We started off going to Joe Frazier’s Gym in Philly and cold-called Joe, who saw us in his office. Matthew and Joe talked about people they knew, people who had passed, life after boxing, and Joe then came out and took some pictures with us.

My lasting memory of Joe was that he was a small man – the former heavyweight champion of the world – who kept trying to tell us he was still a heavyweight when he was clearly the smallest man of the group. He repeatedly made references to how big he was, how large his hands were, how broad his shoulders were, and I thought he was playing. But when I, or perhaps it was the mutual friend, pulled him up on it, he was offended and doubled down.

(A 22ish me and Joe Frazier)

Read more

Part 1

Part 2

10. Micky Ward-Emanuel Augustus

I covered this in long-form recently here, but I suppose what makes this so special is how it was a ‘message-in-a-bottle’ type period of time, firstly with me living in Catskill and secondly, in that something like this, with social media and mobile phones etc, would likely never happen today or again.

I knew this fight would be a war and as it progressed, more and more fight fans flocked into the previously empty bar I was in. I would go back and get more of them after every couple of rounds and, by the end, the bar was packed with fans screaming and shouting at the small TV on the wall, not cheering Micky or Emanuel but saluting the fight and what the fighters shared.

9. Long-listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award

Damage had been several years in the making. I’d travelled to places like Boston, Kiev, Vegas, New York, to get what I could for it and make it as useful as possible, at my own expense. I invested in the book and believed in it. Early on I was told by publishers there was no market for it and they weren’t interested. But Kyle Sarofeen and Hamilcar believed in it and encouraged me every step of the way.

I remember taking a phone call from an anonymous number not far from where I live and I pulled over to answer. It was the organisers for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award and I’d been long-listed.

Read more

You might think you know everything about Mike Tyson.

There cannot be much Tyson-related content that we have not watched or heard during his many decades in the public eye, so when it was announced that there was a new four-part mini-series on Netflix, TYSON, there was a collective rolling of the eyes on social media.

What had he left out of his podcasts, his books, his One Man Show (the Undisputed Truth)? What hasn’t been covered by my colleagues over the years?

The truth is, not much. But the access, the subject matter and the cast assembled for TYSON on the streaming giant means that, like just about every other chapter of Tyson’s life, you can’t miss it.

Mike was must-see TV then. He’s still must-see TV now.

*

“Addicted to chaos,” is what Mike Tyson, now 60, says of a large chunk of his life.

That much was obvious, but when director Floyd Russ films himself and Tyson doing “the toad” – DMT – in the final episode you know you have watched something unlike anything you have ever seen before.

Tyson is flat on his back, struggling to make sense of what is happening to him, while his back catalogue of highs and lows flashes away on the screen, the crushing knockouts, the damning controversies, the deaths, the titles, everything.

And when he comes around, laughing, you can’t help but think he could not have lived without the mania. Tyson might have been destined to be the heavyweight champion, but he was perhaps more destined for carnage. Even his counsellor is reduced to saying: “He’s got some powerful fucking demons.”

“He’s so broken from his past, that he’s probably beyond fixing,” says son Miguel, who added that inside the broken guy is someone trying to be a good father.

It’s powerful testimony, and there’s plenty of it.

There are issues, however, with TYSON.

While you might get the truth, you never quite get the whole truth.

(Photo: Getty Images)

Read more

When the flags flicker in the wind at half-mast outside the International Boxing Hall of Fame, you know that one of the men or women we once considered immortal has passed.

Those who have earned a plaque on the hallowed walls inside the museum grounds may live forever in our minds, hoisted aloft in victory, adorned in championship belts, remembered forever at the peak of their powers, but by the time the great Wilfredo Gomez passed away last week (October 10), aged 69, his best days were long behind him.

But Gomez, the Bazooka, will never be forgotten.

Wilfredo Gomez was so good that even his phenomenal career statistics don’t do him justice. He was one of Puerto Rico’s greats, a three-weight world champion who, after an early draw, ran up 32 straight knockouts, was one of the heaviest hitters in history, having made 17 defences of his first world title. Then you get to the opponents, and he defeated the likes of Juan Laporte, Lupe Pintor, Rocky Lockridge, and Carlos Zarate, while losing to fellow Hall of Famers Azumah Nelson and Salvador Sanchez.

He fought as a pro between 1974 and 1989 and boasted a final record of 44 wins against three losses and a draw with an astonishing 42 stoppage wins.

*

Gomez, who grew up in Las Monjas, Puerto Rico, sold candy on the streets to make money as a kid but it wasn’t long until he was fighting his way to a better life.

He boxed as a flyweight at the 1972 Olympics several weeks before his 16^th birthday and struck gold at the inaugural World Amateur Championships in Cuba in 1974 at bantamweight. He wanted to make money, so he didn’t hang around for the Montreal Olympics of 1976, turning pro aged 17.

Gomez started his pro career off with a draw against Jacinto Fuentes in Panama. Fuentes was 2-1 at the time and he had a hard start to his career. His previous fight was against the great Eusebio Pedroza, who was then 4-0. Little wonder that Fuentes retired with a 10-11-1 record with matchmaking like that.

And Gomez wasn’t done with him, either, taking two rounds to stop him in a return six months on from their first fight. In fact, after that early draw, no one heard the final bell against Gomez for the next seven years.

On Wilfredo’s way through – a blistering stoppage streak of 33 bouts – he halted former WBA champion Alberto Davila and that saw him earn a shot at the WBC super-bantam title against Korea’s Dong Kyun Yum, who – despite dropping Gomez early in the first round – was stopped in the 12^th of a hard fight.

As well as boxing in Puerto Rico, Wilfredo made defences in Japan and Thailand, and in 1978 blew through the brilliant Carlos Zarate, then the reigning Fighter of the Year, in just five rounds. It was said that Zarate had never before lost a fight, amateur or pro. He was 52-0 at the time.

While Zarate was far from done, it represented a torch-passing of sorts after the great Mexican was stopped in front of 11,000 fans at the Roberto Clemente Stadium with some 28,000 fans watching on video in an open-air arena next door.

Zarate wanted a rematch and his manager, Cuyo Hernandez, said his fighter was in “the worst condition” he had been in for a bout.

Gomez didn’t care.

“I always knew that I could beat him, and I proved it tonight,” said the winner. “I really feel good about this victory because I didn’t fail my people and I beat a great fighter.”

He also made $175,000 to Zarate’s 75 grand. Gomez, incidentally, remembered Zarate as the biggest puncher he faced when asked about it later in life.

And Gomez moved onwards but faced regular battles with the scales. He had to drop 6lb ahead of defeating Nestor Martinez in his next bout but the knockouts and stoppages kept coming.

He dropped Derrik Holmes eight times in front of a star-studded Las Vegas crowd that included the Rocky duo of Sylvester Stallone and Carl Weathers in 1980 but two fights later Gomez tasted defeat for the first time when he moved up in weight and ran into the great Mexican featherweight Salvador Sanchez.

Young Sanchez, a 2-1 underdog, was brilliant, flooring Gomez twice and stopping him in eight rounds.

A crowd of 4,500 packed Caesars Palace in Vegas (said to have included 3,000 Mexicans) to watch them go to war in “The Battle of Little Giants” and Hall of Famer Graham Houston, ringside, wrote Gomez had been “clinically jabbed, countered and eventually pounded to defeat by an ice-cold fighting machine.”

Gomez had been dropped and hurt in the very first round but steadied the ship as the fight wore on. He was down again in the eighth, however, and although he made it back to his feet, referee Carlos Padilla took a look into his eyes and waved it off. The Puerto Rican’s face was a mess.

“Blood was splattering from Gomez’ nose and the noise of the crowd beat down like thunder on the ring,” wrote Houston, who had previewed the fight with the highest compliment saying it took the featherweight division back to the days of Pep and Saddler.

Astonishingly, the fight wasn’t picked up by a significant US broadcaster.

Sanchez made a reported $750,000 while Gomez was getting $450,000, setting a record of more than a million bucks for a featherweight fight.

For a while, Gomez became reclusive. He wasn’t sure whether his fans would still accept him, but his body of work meant that no one was too hung up on him losing to the brilliant curly-haired Mexican.

He was soon back to winning ways, too, and still was the WBC champion at super-bantamweight, notching quality wins over the likes of Juan Meza and Juan Antonio Lopez before another big fight, against the superb Lupe Pintor.

The Gomez-Pintor classic, co-featured alongside Thomas Hearns-Wilfred Benitez in the Superdome, New Orleans, was marvellous. One ringsider would later call it “one of the greatest [fights] in years for sustained action of the highest quality.”

There were many who felt Gomez, “affluent” after a record-setting number of defences of his title, had lost his ambition, but he needed every ounce of it against Pintor, who he referred to as his toughest opponent having stopped him in round 14.

Gomez had always been perpetual motion.

His variety with his left hand alone gave opponents enough to think about, often changing the angle of his jab, thundering left hooks to the body and bringing it up top and then doing the same in reverse.

Gil Clancy once said of Gomez: “You miss me, I hit you.”

“I just keep hitting them until they can’t stand it anymore. Then they fall down,” Gomez said himself.

Not many were more colourful in their descriptions than veteran hack Bert Sugar, who wrote: “Walking right into the teeth of a storm to set up shop, Gomez would camp out in front of his opponent and start throwing an entire arsenal of destructive punches from every angle.”

Veteran New York diarist Eddie Cool once wrote, unequivocally, “Gomez is undoubtedly the best and most popular pugilist ever produced by Puerto Rico.”

There were two more wins in 1983 as Gomez vacated his title and moved up to featherweight and this time he was crowned champion.

He had made a phenomenal 17 successful defences of his WBC title at super-bantamweight, even though the new title in the new weight class wasn’t getting traction everywhere.

It was, for many, unglamorous and had only been introduced the year he won the title. Sports executive Sonny Werblin once questioned: “What the hell is a super-bantamweight?”

Well, not many could legitimise it the way Gomez did.

The great Sanchez had lost his life in a tragic car accident and Juan Laporte had won the vacant title.

It was thought Laporte – the champion – made $525,000 while Gomez earned $175,000, though his purse was supposedly bolstered by the gate receipts from the Roberto Clemente Coliseum.

Laporte and Gomez guaranteed “ferocity,” read the excited Boxing News preview.

Experts pointed to Laporte faring better against Sanchez as an indicator that he would be too much for Gomez, but he was coming off a shock non-title loss to Gerald Hayes and Steve Connolly wrote that Gomez could, at the time, be considered the most complete fighter in the world.

Laporte, however, was hospitalised after the clash having reportedly broken several fingers. Gomez also broke his right hand, and said he felt it go in the fourth, although it had not stopped him pounding out a 12-round decision win.

But next up was another all-time great and Azumah Nelson stopped Gomez in 11 rounds.

Nelson boxed Gomez as part of a twin-bill that saw Gerry Cooney fight George Chaplin in Arizona. It was the heavyweights who got most of the headlines, but the real class saw the 19-1 and 26-year-old Nelson, only defeated, too, by the brilliant Sanchez, and Gomez, 41-1-1 – both future Hall of Famers – battle in San Juan.

The great Ghanaian was the No. 1 contender and Gomez didn’t dodge the smoke. It was a different time.

But that night, in front of 12,000 fans outdoors at the Hiram Bithorn stadium, Nelson was too good.

“Gomez stunner – Nelson flattens world champion” headlined Boxing News.

There was just one second left in the 11^th round and the Puerto Rican had been ahead on two scorecards after 10 rounds but even the best shots from “Bazooka” failed to compromise the African “Professor.”

Gomez was dropped twice in that decisive session, the second time causing the fight to be stopped. As much as he tried to stand, Wilfredo sank back down and the fight was over.

It had been another thriller. Nelson had shown him no respect and Gomez kept coming. By the eighth, Gomez’s features were lumpy and there was blood in his mouth. One writer said that, even by then, “he was fighting on heart and instinct alone.”

Some felt he was fatigued because he’d not trained hard enough, that he’d taken Nelson lightly. But that was surely unlikely.

Nelson was perhaps more accurate when he said afterwards: “His best years are behind him.”

But Gomez was always classy, and described once by Boxing News as “one of the outstanding modern fighters” who was “technically versatile.”

Another writer said of Gomez that, “although he’s a clever craftsman, he often sacrifices his skills because he loves to fight.”

“Tirelessly methodical,” wrote another, “with a virtually endless punch repertoire.”

It was felt the Nelson-Gomez winner would be headed into a fight with Irish hero Barry McGuigan but neither got to fight the ‘Clones Cyclone.’

By 1985, speculation that Gomez might be resting on his laurels failed to amount to anything when he went to war with Rocky Lockridge in San Juan to claim his third world title.

Those who felt the loss to Nelson the previous year had meant the end of the road were proved wrong.

“A bruised and battered Wilfredo Gomez called on heart and ring generalship to rally in the late rounds to win a majority 15-round decision over Rocky Lockridge and capture the WBA junior-lightweight title,” said Boxing News.

Lockridge had his moments but slowed after the 11^th round and Gomez, roared on by 10,000 fans in the Roberto Clemente Stadium, turned the screws and won a close majority decision, adding the WBA super-featherweight belt to his WBC titles at super-bantamweight and featherweight.

Lockridge admitted he had been spent during the final third of the bout, and even trainer Lou Duva’s cries for him to “Punch, punch, punch” were largely unanswered.

A year on, however, Gomez was shocked by Panamanian dangerman Alfredo Layne and his career became more stop-start, with more stop than start.

Some felt the 1988 Gomez was still a menace. “Gomez still full of firepower,” read one headline, after a comeback win in Florida that saw him stop Mario Gonzalez in round six of a scheduled 10 having been out of the ring for more than two years.

In part, the bout was noteworthy because Gomez kept losing his footing in some new boxing boots and had to change his footwear after round four to get better purchase on the ring canvas. He said it had felt like he was fighting on ice.

Gomez didn’t box for another year but returned to stop late replacement Mario Salazar in round two in Hollywood, Florida but, aged just 32, that was it for the three-time champ.

Unflattering reports said Gomez “looked heavy around the middle” despite having dropped some 30lbs ahead of the fight that saw him come in around the junior welter limit.

Gomez promised he would be in better condition next time, and he pledged to win a fourth title, but it was all over.

He moved to Venezuela and fell in with the wrong crowd and wound up in drug rehab in Colombia but he managed to clean up, becoming a born-again Christian.

In 2006, Wilfredo – sounding content – spoke to Fightnews and said he was living in Puerto Rico, about an hour from the Wilfredo Gomez arena in Guaynabo, where he was helping train youngsters having been in recovery for eight years – free of alcohol and cocaine.

Asked what he would say to youths to help keep them on the straight and narrow, Gomez said: “I would tell them to learn from the mistakes I made in life. I would advise them to maintain a clean and healthy lifestyle. Please for the sake of your well-being and future, live a healthy and disciplined life.”

Rightly, the former champion was proud of all that he’d accomplished. But not even the stats did him justice.

“If you know your history you will see I had 32 consecutive knockouts,” Gomez told Jason Gonzalez. “And 17 out of those 32 consecutive knockouts were title defences. A record that has yet to be broken. I don’t want people to think that I am full of myself, but I feel I earned the right to be called the greatest Puerto Rican champion of all time. There was nothing that I could not do. I could box, I could punch, I had defence, and most importantly I had guts.”

**

The great raconteur Bert Sugar once paid tribute to Gomez and his ring moniker when he wrote: “The bazooka, a small, portable military weapon capable of firing armour-piercing explosives at close range, came out of World War II. Wilfredo Gomez, a small compact fighter capable of firing his own explosives close-in, came out of the gyms of Puerto Rico three decades later. It’s questionable which possessed the greater firepower – the long, metal single smoothbore tube or the double-barrelled fighter known as ‘Bazooka’ Gomez.”

That just about says it all.

“Losing is worse than dying,” Gomez once said as he looked to come back after the defeat to Sanchez.

When he made one of his first public appearances after that loss, the 5ft 5ins dynamo thanked those in attendance at a dinner for not forgetting him.

That was in 1982. It is fair to say his legend will live on far beyond anything the humble Gomez would have ever believed.

Wilfredo Gomez was not just a Puerto Rican great and a boxing legend. He was a national treasure.

The flags might be fluttering at half-mast in Canastota, but not to worry. It’s just the ‘Bazooka’ letting off a couple of rounds upstairs now he’s been reunited with Sanchez, Lockridge and the other greats.

Part one can be found here.

15. Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder and the rocket launcher

What a trip this was. It was my first significant assignment for BT Sport and I was made to feel incredibly welcome by BT. They even advertised me as a new addition to the boxing team on their socials!

The brief was to go to the US, interview Fury and Wilder ahead of their first fight, so they could create an hour-long documentary in the build-up.

Myself and the BT crew started in Los Angeles and I can’t quite recall why but we interviewed Scott Quigg and journalist Steve Kim at the Wild Card on the first day and later on travelled to Big Bear for Fury.

This is where it got interesting. Fury was living in a secluded mansion and when we arrived, he was indifferent at best. You can pinpoint the date of it because it was the day Hughie Fury fought Kubrat Pulev.

We thought we’d be in and out for the interview but Fury told us we had to wait until after Hughie, whom he was at odds with, had boxed. And we had to sit and watch the fight with him.

We did that, and Fury seemed torn. They were recently estranged but there was no doubt Tyson wanted Hughie to win and was disappointed when he did not.

Anyway, an annoyed Fury then stood up and the lighting and audio guys scurried round to set up.

By the time we were ready, Fury was all but checked out. Now I’d known Tyson for many years by this point and when we hit record I was wary about what might happen. As I recall, I had about seven pages of questions at hand and Fury gave me one-word answers and we burnt through them all in just about 10 minutes. He wasn’t having any of it. I could feel the whole crew getting agitated. They were on edge and Fury was giving them no reason to feel differently.

It was at this moment I went off script. I folded my sheets of questions and dropped them to the floor and started talking to Fury face to face and one on one. We riffed. I saw him start to engage and lean forward. He relaxed. He opened up. And more than an hour later we had what I’d class as the best interview Fury has done. (Note: I might be biased and I’ve not seen them all).

The crew was ecstatic and the producer, Kevin Evans, couldn’t believe the turnaround. Fury had apparently loved it. He stood up from his seat and hugged me. “Good interview,” he said. In depth. In depth.”

I breathed a huge sigh of relief because I knew we had something good. Then it was on to Alabama.

Wilder was typically on great form. He remembered who I was from some previous meetings we’d had and interviews we’d done, not least back in 2008 after he won Olympic bronze. I was one of the first to interview him about his daughter, who was born with spina bifida.

Anyway, we filmed Wilder initially on the track and then at the gym but the best part came when we went to his home/mansion overlooking a lake. We had a great interview. In fact, before the cameras rolled, we made small talk and he was telling me how he hoped to build a shooting range on the grounds. He then went through his arsenal of weapons and told me he’d recently purchased a rocket launcher.

“No way, I’m not leaving until we see it,” I said.

The interview started and we did about an hour and I was elated with how it went. Wilder had just about matched Fury, the lake we shot on was beautiful and the sun had nearly gone down.

The team and I packed up our stuff and said our goodbyes and as we loaded up the car, out of the house comes Wilder.

“You forgot something,” he said, wielding his rocket launcher in the air.

Read more

Total Boxing YouTube

Since starting Substack, I’ve found myself reflecting a lot on my time in boxing and thinking: that was one of my favourite moments or that was one of the best things I’ve done in boxing.

I’ve been extremely fortunate since lacing up gloves for the first time in 1995 to have made some wonderful memories. There have been terrible ones, too, and some that might have triggered depression or anxiety – but that’s perhaps a list for another day.

For now, and in the interest of positivity, here are 20 of my favourite moments in boxing, told over four weekly instalments.

This is the first part. It’s free; the remaining three will be paywalled and released each Sunday.

I hope you enjoy the rundown.

20. Being in the room with Muhammad Ali

This is a bit of a reach and I can’t say I ever interacted with Ali, made eye contact with him or claim much else. But I saw him with my own two eyes twice, and both times were when his daughter Laila boxed. Firstly, when Mike Tyson fought Andrew Golota at Auburn Hills, Laila was on the undercard and Ali glided by a few rows in front of me. Then, when Laila boxed Jacqui Frazier in upstate New York, I saw him walking into the tent/marquee that was hosting the event.

It’s not much. But I felt his presence. It was almost like being able to see a mythical man you could have only read about or seen in a film. But there he was, in front of me. Twice. (Photo is the view from my seat in the Turning Stone for Ali-Frazier IV. Earlier in the evening, I’d been about 20ft from Laila’s dad)

(A photo from the day I visited Pryor at his home to tune in to his great fights)

19. Watching Pryor-Arguello with Aaron Pryor

Aaron Pryor’s first fight with Alexis Arguello is one of the great bouts of all time. I’d seen it several times and I’d watched the Legendary Nights episode HBO produced about the Pryor-Arguello rivalry that eventually became a friendship.

But imagine being able to sit on the couch and watch it with Pryor, at his apartment in Cincinnati, with “The Hawk” commentating throughout. Then, imagine Pryor being so invested he reached for the DVD of his title win over Antonio Cervantes and happily did the same thing.

(I wrote about this in more detail recently here)

(My credential for the fight)

18. Manny Pacquiao is flattened in his fourth fight with Juan Manuel Marquez

I can’t recall ever seeing a fight come to such an abrupt end. We knew Pacquiao and Marquez were bitter rivals and there had been nothing between them in their three excellent previous fights, so the assumption was that the fourth battle would be no different. If anything, Pacquiao was favoured. And he appeared to be taking control of an absolute riot of a fight until he sprung in and onto as flush a right hand as you will ever see.

I remember at the time being disappointed because I’d been enjoying the fight so much I didn’t want it to end, but that was soon replaced by a very real concern as Pacquiao lay motionless. It was one of the most violent and famous knockouts in boxing history.

(My seat on the night. Pacquiao was facing me at the end)

(With Yaqui in his gym)

17. Taking my kids to meet Yaqui Lopez, Yaqui becoming a friend

Arguably Matthew Saad Muhammad’s great ring rival, though you could certainly add John Conteh and Marvin Johnson to the list, I first visited former light-heavyweight contender Yaqui at his home in 2004, but on and off we stayed in touch. (Matthew was a friend of mine and I wound up writing a biography of him after he had passed away)

Then, a couple of years ago, my kids and I were planning a road trip that would see us drive from San Francisco to Yosemite, and that road goes through Stockton, where Yaqui lives.

Seeing Yaqui brings me great joy. It brings me closer to Matthew. And now my kids have been to his home and his gym. Yaqui welcomes me like an old friend and I get the feeling that when we embrace, he feels like he’s hugging Matthew, as do I.

(Ben and Lois meet Yaqui)

(The wrap pictured in my study yesterday)

16. Getting hands wrapped by Freddie Roach in the Wild Card

Freddie could, really, feature a few times in this list. He used to pen a monthly column for me when I was Boxing News editor. He brought me one of his new Nike special edition ‘Freddie Knows’ T-shirts to Washington before Amir Khan fought Lamont Peterson, and we had breakfast the day of that fight.

Also, when Oscar De La Hoya fought Stevie Forbes in Carson, the media pack went to those press days and I stayed back in the Wild Card with Freddie every day, often just he and I, for hours on end.

But in 2012, with my South African friend Colin Nathan helping out in the Wild Card and learning from Freddie, Nathan took me on the pads for a few rounds. But, best of all, I sat at the desk on the left when you go in and Freddie wrapped my hands.

In fact, after I’d trained, both coaches signed the wraps and I still have them today.

(Freddie, Colin and I 14 years ago in the Wild Card)

Total Boxing YouTube

You can find Part 1 here.

As the replies kept coming in about boxing’s present ills, some old classics re-emerged, with many citing the political landscape and impact of the sanctioning bodies.

It came the week after Hamzah Sheeraz handed back his WBO super-middleweight title because he didn’t want to fight Janibek Alimkhanuly for what would have been around $750,000.

There are many things wrong with this fight. Janibek popped and no one is satisfied he’s had an appropriate ban. Sheeraz could have baulked at the fight for that reason, but it’s a slippery claim if his end goal is to fight Canelo Alvarez.

Secondly, he seems to think his market value is well in excess of what the market has now told him he is worth through purse bids. Last I saw, he’s not a huge draw or attraction. He’s coming off two terrible matches, in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. But he would have been handsomely paid because they were funded by Saudi Arabia.

The financial bubble those fighters are operating under doesn’t cover bouts away from said bubble.

That market is a law unto itself and no one can match that, and even those running those promotions will be doing so at catastrophic losses.

Of course, we knew they were happy to burn money, but this new problem is melded with the old one about titles.

People claim online that #beltsmatter today, but I’d suggest they’d matter a damn sight more if they are hard-earned and always won in the ring in proper fights. Then the likes of Sheeraz would find it far harder to hand them back.

“Too fragmented, too many belts, and take Conor Benn, what right did he have to get a shot at a world title? It’s fucked and fans are turning off. All this shit about AJ vs Fury, it’s 10 years out of date. It’s a payday pension for two old men,” wrote @wolfsmithbrake.

Former light-heavyweight contender John Scully chipped in on the sport’s sanctioning bodies: “The psychopathic four-time world champion, the regular term, emeritus CHAMPIONS are horrible black marks on our sport. I hate them.”

The broadcast situation is bothering plenty of fight fans, too.

“Re it reaching mass audiences, absolutely,” offered @UpTheHill14. “No terrestrial TV and it all being behind paywalls on a niche app like DAZN. It will never appeal to the casual masses if being consumed that way. Ever. Throw in boxers now holding out for big Saudi purses only and it’s awful.”

Rob Berry agreed, saying, “DAZN paywalls are killing the sport to casual fans.”

There was the occasional nostalgic lament back to Sky Sports with Eddie Hearn and, further back, to HBO.

@lukejbr04 felt Matchroom leaving Sky for DAZN was significant – and he was not the only one – but also said the International and Intercontinental titles on offer to get fighters ranked by the sanctioning bodies have caused “the decline in domestic title fights.”

That is fair. Many prospects are skipping British, Commonwealth and European titles in favour of picking up a top-15 ranking in the hope of landing a speculative world title bout.

Would Moses Itauma have benefitted from fighting the likes of Jeamie TKV, Richard Riakporhe, Frazer Clarke or David Adeleye, working his way up to a Filip Hrgovic?

@davidrobertbeal wrote: “Boxing on Sky Sports was the best for me: AJ-Fury 10 years too late pretty much sums it up. Where is the next UK big name?”

“Does not seem to be many, if any, coming up with star/crossover potential,” added Glen Fraser.

@RacingFan5656 said: “Feels like a lack of stars coming through and the ones we have/had are being milked for everything they’re worth.”

Two fighters who came up regularly in the comments, and in part that’s down to the timing, were Benn and Sheeraz.

@suepesas explained: “Commercial draws don’t fight – meaningfully or otherwise – which leads to heavily-hyped fights with zero competitive substance, like Benn-Garcia… which even in relative boxing terms stank so rancidly BEFORE the actual fight, that predictably underwhelming ending was a relief.”

@mubzy_k said the powerbrokers pushed self-interest over the greater good but added: “Boxing has always been broken. It’s just more broken today. It’s also been ‘dying’ as long as I have been alive, but at its best there is nothing like it.”

But the issue of Misfits was a constant in the feedback.

“The divide between Misfits and regular boxing is now invisible,” said @Badwah23041. He also added: “Any fight that’s even half decent is behind one or two paywalls. This means the general public isn’t being educated about the sport anymore and now thinks people like Conor Benn and Tommy Fury are top boxers.”

Michael R, like those at the start of Part 1, said boxing was neither great today nor terrible.

“Positives: UK – stadium shows, ticket sales, UK fighters at world level.

“Negatives: UK/US lack of mainstream exposure, inflated purses unsustainable and giving fighters an inflated sense of value; lack of global stars, lack of emerging talent.”

“I’m a lifelong fan,” said @DaveSunderlandx, “and have all but checked out.” He cited “greedy promoters putting on too many PPVs” and fighters avoiding one another” as his bugbears.

“Boxing has always been broken,” said Rob Berry. “Current problems. DAZN paywalls are killing the sport to casual fans. Misfits/faux boxing is misrepresenting the real sport. Small-hall boxing is dead… having an impact on the future talent pipeline.”

Ian Challis added to that: “No televised small-hall shows and therefore little to no vested interest. Sky had a show every week from leisure centres, you could pick up a fighter early and support…. Froch-Bute wasn’t pay-per-view. Imagine that now.”

The small-hall issue and the struggle of that scene have proved bothersome for many who see it as an integral but sadly faltering part of the industry.

“Small-hall shows are absolutely getting rinsed and the gap between top and bottom is so big,” wrote @rogers1875.

James Smith added: “Small-hall scene on its arse. Not enough casual footfall due to big fights being on PPV or relatively obscure streaming platforms (DAZN). Saudi and vanity project money warping the market. Sport more confusing to casuals than ever.”

The lack of activity of the big-name fighters is a turn-off for @DeanAntony, who said: “It’s the worst state I’ve seen it. Rapidly losing interest in it. Big fighters rarely fight. It’s going down fast in my opinion.”

And John Baker said it was quality as much as quantity.

“Name one present British boxer outside the heavies who the average person on the street would know. Eubank/Benn… some of the cards are dreadful nowadays, really sad.”

@paulsarts maintained that the best have not been fighting the best with anything like enough regularity.

“Started with Mayweather and Pacquiao not fighting and has got worse… Fighters desperate to protect the ‘0’. Fair play to Moses Itauma for giving it a go. Will do him good.”

Daniel Miles had an issue with there being weeks without meaningful action, and then promoters clashing on dates.

@UKRobBoxing said he was caring “less and less” and said the social media era has sucked the enjoyment out of the sport. “It’s all grown so draining and tiresome,” he said.

Matt Andrzejewski reckoned boxing fans have it harder than supporters of other sports.

“Something is different now,” he began. “First essential loss of linear TV. Apps were good as an addition but difficult to follow sport… And cost exceeds value of the product. UFC is around $10 a month for everything, boxing exceedingly more expensive.”

And another key part of the feedback about the sport was hard-working fighters not getting their opportunities or recognition because they don’t have a significant social media following or fanbase.

Gavin Stevens said: “Genuine talent doesn’t get recognition if they don’t cause controversy and get views on socials,” and @gman said: “All about ‘big names’ now rather than boxers working their way through rankings, eliminators, final eliminators etc. Far too driven by PPVs and big paydays (I know it’s dangerous and fighters deserve all the money they can get) but the money can still come as a respected, genuine fighter.”

There is a lot to unpick in these two parts. And there was enough material for a third.

Of course, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. But perhaps an audience of those willing to talk about boxing on an innocuous post on social media should be the first port of call when you look at those you should be looking to please.

YES – 819 votes
NO – 117 votes

I don’t use X much these days, for a multitude of reasons, so when I put up a relatively innocuous poll on Tuesday, I wasn’t expecting much take up to the question, ‘Is boxing broken?’

I asked for feedback and offered two replies as part of a poll, option one was Yes, it’s broken. Option Two was No, never better.

Had I been giving it more thought, I would have thought of one or two middle ground replies. That was suggested to me.

We could have had, ‘It’s broken, but a couple of small fixes and it would be great.’ Or, ‘It’s in a slump, but things are changing,’ or ‘It’s great, but we need to be careful.’

And I was called out for the lack of options, which is fine.

Tom Houston said: “I’m not voting because that’s a crazy dichotomy. How about a few choices in between.”

“Somewhere between the two,” wrote Karl Gibson.

JohnnyBoyRejoin stated: “It’s neither broken nor better than ever. The sport has been fractured for many years but in the midst of that we’ve always managed to get some big fights made. I’m concerned about Dana White getting involved. Zuffa could well be our version of LIV Golf. But generally it’s okay.”

*

But I can’t lie, the court of public opinion was unbothered by the lack of nuance because the concern for boxing’s health is very real.

By the end, there were 936 votes with 87.5 per cent believing the sport was broken and just 12.5 per cent thinking it was thriving.

At my last count, there were some 115 comments (and a few quote tweets) and plenty of common themes, too.

We will go ahead and look at the comments, providing analysis and opinion as we go along, but for me it feels like the sport is being inhabited by strangers when it was the familiarity of what came before that had created such a community.

Fighters were, to start with, more accessible. That is a big part of it, I’m sure.

As an example, the likes of Frank Bruno, Ricky Hatton, Joe Calzaghe and Chris Eubank would attend events like the British Boxing Board of Control lunch or the old Boxing Writers’ Club dinner, but nowadays fighters would see themselves as above that. Traditions are no longer being passed down.

This was noted by Lucas Ketelle looking at the history of the sport.

“We are getting away from respect for history,” he said. “We used to value history too much in boxing, and now it seems like we are at an utter indifference towards anyone who came before the here and now.”

It’s interesting to note, too, that when DAZN tried to say George Liddard had become the youngest British middleweight champion and I pointed out he might not have even been in the top 10 youngest on X, I was decried a killjoy who shouldn’t be trying to ruin his big night. Damn the facts, and the likes of Mark Kaylor, Randolph Turpin, Terry Downes et al

Still, many fighters would rather be getting content done somewhere now, or be on a red carpet, and I think that comes through the generations. The likes of Stephen Smith, Tony Bellew, Jamie Moore and countless others would consume every page of Boxing News every week because they loved the sport and wanted to learn about it. Do young fighters today even pick up Boxing News?

And the magazine part led into another point made by @GaryAGray. He used to peruse the magazine selection in the newsagents where there was Boxing News, Boxing Monthly, The Ring, KO and Boxing Digest. Now, it’s so costly to get on the newsstand, BM has fallen by the wayside, KO has gone, so has Boxing Digest, Boxing News is monthly and The Ring is part of the problem.

“I was a boxing nerd,” wrote @GaryAGray. “For many years from a teenager buying all the mags watching as many fights as I could and recently listening to boxing pods all day. Now it’s too many PPVs, overhyped mismatches and subscriptions, so I’ve stopped everything.”

But it is hard to compare today’s coverage with yesteryear’s because times have changed just as much as boxing.

As I stated in a recent Mailbag, it wasn’t too long ago that British title fights would get coverage in the newspapers. Now I’m not sure Dalton Smith or Josh Kelly would get a mention. But, of course, newspapers were big business then and their print readership has dramatically declined.

Of course, when big names get involved, the newspapers come back. We are bracing ourselves for Fury-Joshua and everything that will come with it. It will get wall-to-wall coverage. But it won’t be written about in the newspapers by dedicated boxing writers as they scarcely exist today. Initially, many boxing journos were asked to take on another sport. Now, with most of them gone, covering the sport will be handed to a generic sports hand. That doesn’t help.

But it doesn’t seem all that long ago that I’d be sat next to the late Ron Lewis at The Times, Pat Sheehan and Colin Hart from The Sun, Kevin Francis from The Star, Kevin Mitchell and Donald McRae from the Guardian and Observer, Niall Hickman and Brian Doogan from The Express, Bob Mee at the Daily Telegraph, Ian Gibb at the Daily Mail, and that’s before you got to the US, where you’d have Tim Smith from New York, Dan Rafael at ESPN, Kevin Iole from Yahoo, David Mayo in Grand Rapids, John Saraceno from USA Today, Lance Pugmire and Steve Springer at the LA Times, Steve Carp in Vegas, Bernard Fernandez in Philly, Michael Katz, Bert Sugar…

When I was at Tim Tszyu’s first fight with Sebastian Fundora in Vegas a couple of years ago, I was asked to sit and wait with a table of written journalists while the fighters were brought over to speak to us. By the time Tszyu came over, there was me and one other. That was the only written press.

“Massively broken,” said @jagoboxeo of the sport today. “It’s now ran by teenagers with cameras pushing narratives from promoters so they can keep access.”

“The sport has been in decline as newspaper coverage began to die,” wrote Gabriel Montoya. “Free TV deals gave way to cable and PPVs. The sport is run by short-term thinkers and was sold out to the Saudis with much the same thinking. Boxing is where it is because of the people who have been running it.”

Michael Carter felt like good old-fashioned competition was best for business. “But Saudi control has ruined it. Promoters no longer compete, fighters don’t need to sell themselves, small halls are dying and most fights are PPV. Criticise the regime and you’re frozen out. Greed will prevail. And now Misfits is mainstream.”

“Young fans that walk in the boxing gym chatting about Misfits boxing one weekend, but with no mention of a decent domestic dust-up the following weekend isn’t great,” added Sean Anderson. “I mean, you could say at least they’re talking about boxing.”

Rob Hoar said that while the best have “somewhat” been fighting the best, he added: “Influencers and YouTubers fighting has beens is not of interest to me but I guess it does numbers and brings young fans to the sport.”

And, in part, that is another issue, that there are so few storytellers left, but also because there are so few outlets wanting to tell stories. Now it’s short-form, snappy, clicks, hits that are the markers for success. It’s not about five-star reviews for quality or a powerful product. Everyone wants success at surface level without realising that if you dig deeper into the characters, you can develop ‘buy in’ from an invested audience that cares.

And there is a lack of knowledge about what good long-form content looks like. For DAZN, some of their ‘long form’ is barely 20 minutes long but there are few inquisitions in the interviews, little pushback in their conversations even though what they do produce looks lovely and glossy, there’s not much substance behind the style. I watched 20 minutes with Teofimo Lopez recently and learned nothing. Same thing with George Liddard. Nothing I watched made me want to see their upcoming fights.

And DAZN has its critics and, according to my spot survey, plenty of the detractors are on X. Much of the criticism is to do with paywalls and subscriptions, but plenty also comes down to sycophantic commentary.

As well as “the five-belt era, Hamzah Sheeraz (more tomorrow), Conor Benn, Fury-AJ tedium, Steve Hunt of the Desert Island Fights podcast said one of his major problems was with, “arse-licking commentators.”

The positive commentary has become a bug-bear of mine, too. We are constantly being told that boxing is in such great shape, but if it was, this feature would have been a hell of a lot shorter. Sure, it’s great for those who have been touched by the money of Russian oligarchs and Saudi billionaires, but that’s a small percentage of the overall sport.

Glen Fraser said he was likely going to give up his DAZN subscription because “I hardly watch it.”

@saintsman1982 took it a stage further when he said there were too many platforms “and PPV has gone mental.” “Some domestic fights being branded PPV is wrong only world title fights being branded PPV is wrong only world title fights should be PPV. And promoters and fighters dodging certain fights is all wrong.”

One of the most significant concerns is around Turki Alalshkih, who a couple of years ago shared a picture of himself on social media as ‘the face of boxing’ and who was recently just rated the No. 1 most powerful man in the sport by Boxing News (I was on the panel).

But Matt Elliott, who feels the sport is broken, believes the financial bubble that has provided boxing with such a false economy in the last three years has caused a vacuum. “Turki came in paid over the odds for fights and gave some average fighters an inflated sense of their worth and now we are paying for that. Without him we wouldn’t have had some big fights but the minimum payday many expect is now too high for the market.”

“Turki has ruined the sport,” added British Boxing Hub. “He came in got close to all the promoters and fighters paid them crazy money. But it was all a ply to try to take over with Zuffa the sport has never felt more divided and shady. I mean they paid Benn 13mill to fight an injured Regis so MR couldn’t match.”

“Two fights in,” wrote Eddy Hebbron, “And everyone is going to be a world champion and only want to fight for money not legacy. Turki has ruined it.”

“Turki arrived as the saviour,” wrote @TheBoxingMadMan, “Did a few good shows then all went to shite. Warren and Hearn thrown to the kerb. Turki hooked up with Dana and things have gone from bad to worse.”

I’d also contest that we’ve had this glut of dream fights. You can hold some heavyweight fights up there, and both Beterbiev-Bivol fights, but we’ve also had Shakur Stevenson versus Josh Padley (yes, the Englishman was a late sub), Jai Opetaia against Jack Massey and Ellis Zorro, Chris Eubank Jnr versus Kamil Szeremeta, Joshua and Fury against Francis Ngannou, Usyk against Rico Verhoeven, Hamzah Sheeraz against Alem Begic and Simon Zachenhuber, Richard Riakporhe-Tommy Welch, Adam Azim-Kurt Scoby and plenty of other fights that don’t fit with the remit of the best fighting the best.

And, yeah, I’m saying it, Crawford-Canelo. Who wanted that, really? Great final act for Crawford, if that’s what it was, but it wasn’t a dream fight. And as for Canelo, we also got the William Scull bore.

“The best stopped fighting the best within their weight class,” offered Belle Boxing Club who added, importantly, “lack of activity.”

That hyper-inflation has led to fighters boxing barely once a year. Three outings for a top fighter is seen as revolutionary and “old school.”

In fact, Jonathan Lewis said “I find the undercards are poor these days. Chief support used to be a for the world title, now I find them very poor, now PPV ain’t even for a world title.”

There are some who felt the previously-questionable regime to challenge boxing’s status quo, MTK, was still responsible for deep wounds in the sport.

Stephen Dempster said: “The Kinahan/MTK era badly damaged the sport. The Daniel Kinahan enablers and supporters in the sport – boxers, trainers, promoters etc ­– still in the sport and we know who they are – they polluted boxing and that cannot be repaired. They know who they are too! We see them.”

Another common theme was that the best were still not fighting the best, even with the influx of Saudi wealth.

Richard Allan said, “No one fighting each other” and “nothing on tnt/Sky [although Sky now has the deals with Zuffa and MVP] making it expensive to access” and he added “zero drugs checks.”

And Allan was not alone with the latter sentiment, either.

“Failure to deal properly with issues re drugs from Fury to Benn demean the sport,” wrote Andrew Collingbourne. “Money as ever talks and no coincidence that the bigger the profile of the boxer concerned the inevitability of being exonerated with the most ludicrous excuses invariably involving foodstuffs.”

“The PEDS issue for me needs to be stamped out once and for all,” wrote Danny Coveney. “None of this serving undisclosed bans. Name and shame so we all know when a fighter is serving a ban. Second catch, ban for life.”

Part 2 coming tomorrow

Tris, I have question about boxing’s popularity in the UK versus its “niche sport” status here in the US.

I’ve seen boxing’s popularity steadily decline here since the late 80’s & 90’s for a multitude of reasons. However, in the UK boxing is booming and thriving. To what do you attribute boxing’s success & popularity in the UK? Do you feel it’s cultural or is it something that the US market can learn from?

David Gomez

Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not a niche sport here, or that it’s not treated like one. Let me provide some context.

Twenty years ago British title fights would appear in every newspaper. Now, I’d be surprised if Dalton Smith bouts get a mention. Now, newspapers don’t have a dedicated boxing guy.

At small hall level, Steve Goodwin has quit trying to make it work and Johnny Clark is giving it to the end of the year before jacking it in if things don’t work.

At Team GB level, in the amateurs, the heavy days of Beijing and London are in the past and we’ve declined ever since.

What’s mad about this all is boxing still does massive numbers and has a huge casual audience.

TalkSPORT, the big radio broadcaster, has turned boxing into its second sport - behind football/soccer - and I heard cable channel TNT Sports, formerly BT Sport, wanted to do the same but they lost their bid, whatever they were going for. I’m not sure if it was Zuffa or Misfits but they were in for something a year or so ago.

But when Eddie Hearn came in and started to sign fighters at the start, you could see the quality of fighters in or near the top…. Kell Brook, Tony Bellew, Darren Barker, Carl Froch, Carl Frampton, Scott Quigg…. That’s before you pack in the 2012 Olympians. If a promoter came in now, I’m not sure you’ve got anything like such strength as an equivalent.

Also, as the former editor of Boxing News, while reading habits have – of course – changed, the drop off after the Hatton and Calzaghe era was steep and even Haye, Froch and Khan issues never reached the same heights.

Tris who do you think is the most poorly promoted and undervalued fighter in the sport at the moment? Writing a bit about Bautsi currently, occurred to me he’s 33 and his career so far just feels so underwhelming - anyone at the moment who’s a nearly guy in that vein and how would you maximise the rest of their career from here on out?

Danny, In-Boxing

Ouch, this is a hard one and tough to answer without throwing someone under a bus.

Read more

When you look back on it now, it was lunacy. I was living in Atlantic City, as close as you could be to being broke while being able to stay alive and I’d not spoken to anyone back home in months.

Life for me was training in between the Atlantic City Police Athletic League Gym and the Pleasantville Recreation Center and trying to do just about anything I could in the sport.

But one day, having had one interview published in Boxing News, with Micky Ward, I thought I would try to do three in a day.

Now I was not in a position to pitch anything. I had no idea if anyone would speak to me or if Boxing News would take anything else from me. I would write the pieces, send them in and hope they made the grade.

I also knew that there was no space for fan-style pieces in serious boxing journalism. No one wanted to read what a twenty-year-old kid thought would happen if Mike Tyson fought Jack Dempsey, or whether Lennox Lewis was “overrated.”

I had to offer something unique and that, I decided, was interviewing old fighters.

A couple of years earlier, I met an autograph collector from New Jersey called Tom Jess. He was at the International Boxing Hall of Fame with bantamweight legend Jeff Chandler and told me he had a few addresses and numbers for retired fighters. He sent me a list and, being an absolute nobody, I looked longingly at the names and imagined what it would be like to meet some of these incredible fighters.

It was a dream.

*

It was a year or so on and I had these names and addresses in front of me. Autograph collectors back then would share newsletters and swap information about celebrities from all walks of life and would speculatively send items off to addresses to be signed and returned. Somethings came back – signed no less – some did not. It was pot luck.

Well, I had three addresses on this morning in late 2002. One was of former middleweight contender Rocky Castellani, and it was in Atlantic City. One was a number for ex-middleweight champion Joey Giardiello, and one was for Chandler. I only knew Chandler’s information, an address, to be up to date.

But this was in an era before mobile phones and using the internet was not as commonplace as it would become.

*

It started, paper map from the bus station in hand, with a long stroll down the famous Boardwalk to Ventnor to visit Castellani. That went well enough and is a story for another day. It culminated with a bit at the end which was one of the most memorable sections of my book, The Road to Nowhere, with me eventually tracking down Chandler in Philly.

The middle part of it all might have been the most haphazard stroke of luck I’d had in a while.

After speaking to Rocky, I made my way to a phone box and called Joey Giardiello. He said he would see me and he was in Cherry Hill. He told me to call when I arrived and he would come out and meet me. That instigated a walk back to the bus station so I could get a ride to Cherry Hill, which was on the route to Philly, where I held hopes of meeting Chandler later in the day.

I arrived in Cherry Hill and called Joey, who handed me over to a friend of his. He was an Englishman called Peter Green, and he said he’d been invited to join us because he was a friend of Joey’s and a countryman of mine. That made things very easy.

My instructions were to make my way to the Diamond Diner and they would meet me there and it all felt rather surreal.

I had been around a lot of fighters by this point, but it was crazy to think I was in Rocky Castellani’s house in the morning and then about to have lunch with Giardello just hours apart. Ironically, they had boxed each other in 1951 with Rocky climbing off the canvas to win a decision over 10 rounds in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

I arrived at the diner shortly before they did, and when they came in, Peter and Joey embraced me like an old friend and Joey started chatting up the waitresses.

He smiled and joked and, not long after being seated, he was talking about desserts and sweet things.

I played the straightest and most boring bat I could and ordered a chicken salad. With hindsight, it was a ridiculous choice. I’d not had anything of significant sustenance for weeks but was too polite to pick anything else. Plus, I was not assuming anyone else was paying and that was the cheapest selection.

And then, with our orders taken and the seventy-two-year-old Giardiello being reined in from flirting with the staff by the similarly-aged Peter, we started to chat about Joey’s life and career.

While I was familiar with Joey’s accomplishments, there is no question I looked into what he’d done even more in the aftermath of his portrayal in the film The Hurricane, with Denzel Washington playing Rubin “Hurricane” Carter in the lead role. But we will get to that.

*

“Are you looking for me?” smiled the small man with short white hair and a cosy looking autumnal golfing jacket.

It was Joey Gairdello and rather than shake my hand, he opted to embrace me.

I told him I’d just seen Rocky, and that Castellani had told me he was going to make a comeback to fight Joey again.

“Is that what he said?” Joey smiled. “I beat the shit out of him but I didn’t get the decision. It’s a long time ago now.”

As we sat down and ate, with Joey charming any waitress that came close to the table, he went through his story. He talked about joining the army and then deserting the forces because he missed his friends and couldn’t settle in. He was in the 82^nd Airborne Division and was ultimately given a dishonourable discharge.

That saw him start his pro career and he boxed 33 times in his first three years as a pro, and as Joey talked, occasionally you could see patrons at other tables start to listen to his stories and sometimes he was stopped mid-flow with a visitor to the table who said: “Hey, Champ.”

Joey’s colourful stories tumbled from him and he spoke about everything. I even ventured to ask him about his suspected ties with organised crime figures.

“If I was with The Mob, they didn’t do a very good job because I was always begging for a title shot,” he insisted. “I was the top contender for a long time but no one would fight me. The Mob was meant to be able to help people get title fights, weren’t they?”

There was a hint of a smirk when Joey said it.

Joey had been born in Brooklyn but later moved to Philadelphia and he fought a long list of top fighters and some of them several times.

He fought Gene Fullmer to a bloody draw, defeated Sugar Ray Robinson to finally get his rating as No. 1, fought Dick Tiger four times and, of course, defeated Rubin Carter in a fight he deservedly won but that Hollywood producers telling the ‘Hurricane’ story took liberties with, making it look like Joey won because of racist judges.

Joey won a lawsuit over that, and that had happened not too long before we met.

Recalling the movie premier, Joey said: “I climbed out of my chair and felt like shouting, ‘That never happened.’”

Press cuttings at the time revealed Joey had been a worthy winner.

In his 97-26-8 (30 KOs) record, Joey boxed the likes of Wilf Greaves, Juan Carlos Rivero, George Benton, Henry Hank, Ralph Dupas, Peter Mueller, Terry Downes, Spider Webb, Del Flanagan and Holly Mims.

He got robbed on the road a few times, but by the early 2000s he could smile about it all.

“The one thing I will say,” he added. “My mangers were the bravest guys in the world. They didn’t give a shit who I fought. They made me fight all the toughest guys around… In those days the champions could fight. They were all good fighters. These days I don’t many of them and it seems everybody is a champion.”

*

As we said our goodbyes in the entry hall to the diner, I asked Joey if he’d stop and pose for a photo. On his insistence, we had one together. Then he wanted one of me, Peter and himself. Finally, as he left the diner, I said I might just need one of him on his own. He relented and stood there, on an autumnal midday in Cherry Hill, held his hands in a fighting pose, and I snapped him with the crisp blue air in the background. I was buzzing. What a day. Now it was on to Philly to find Jeff.

*

I was so grateful for everything Peter had done, bringing Joey, encouraging conversation and also picking up the tab at the diner, that we stayed in touch until around 2010.

Throughout that time, he’d give me sporadic updates on Joey.

Read more

It was a year ago when I was driving home from the airport when fight manager Brian Peters messaged me.

He sent me a link to a story that said Ricky Hatton had died.

My initial thought was it was one of those cruel internet hoaxes and I put the phone down, thinking Brian should know better.

Then it hit me.

“Oh no. Not Ricky. No. Please no.”

Read more

I was so engaged listening to his story that nothing else mattered.

George Chuvalo had arrived a little late to meet me in a coffee shop in rainy Toronto, but I was grateful he’d made it at all.

I’d been blown off by Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and Chuvalo proved a failsafe, but I wasn’t ready for what was to come.

Sure, I knew about his family tragedy and that he’d fought Ali, Frazier, Foreman and the best of his generation.

I knew he was arguably Canada’s greatest heavyweight.

And I knew about the rock-solid chin and that he was often heralded as one of the fighters not to exhibit signs of his brutal profession long after he retired. Given he was known for his durability, that was quite the compliment and he must have had neurologists scratching their heads.

How did a man who’d taken so many bombs from so many huge punchers remain so lucid? Where was the short-term memory loss, the slurred speech, or the unsteady walk?

Well, when George came bowling in to meet me, I was thrilled.

George Chuvalo won 73 times as a pro, losing 18 fights and drawing twice. Famously, he was known for never being dropped, though he didn’t hear the final bell against Frazier or Foreman. No matter. He was a walking lump of granite and he could really fight. Chuvalo was 4-0 after his first night as a pro after he chinned his first four opponents in Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens in a tournament named after Jack Dempsey. There were a couple of early losses as he cut his teeth, but in 1959 he won the Canadian title with a 12th-round stoppage of Yvon Durelle.

He won and lost in equal measure through the early sixties, picked up a DQ for headbutting small Welsh heavyweight Joe Erskine (claiming he was retaliating for being thumbed in the eye) and lost to the decent Zora Folley. But he stopped contender Doug Jones, Syracuse heavy Mike DeJohn, and lost a blistering 1965 battle with Floyd Patterson in the Fight of the Year. I remember George telling me that Patterson, “had a left hook that could tear your brains out.”

George had to gulp down a good few of them.

George, who told me “Two Ton” Tony Galento taught him how to headbutt, felt he was robbed losing a decision to Ernie Terrell over 15 rounds and always believed the Chicago man’s manager, Bernie Glickman – who had colourful ties to the underworld – made sure the fix was in.

He actually went into a heavyweight title fight against Ali coming off a loss to Eduardo Corletti in London, and that came after a victory over Joe Bygraves in London’s Royal Albert Hall. My friend George Zeleny was at both fights, and said of Chuvalo: “Hard, hard man.”

That could be on his headstone.

Chuvalo lost a decision to Ali over 15 rounds having accepted the fight with less than weeks’ notice and lost a decision to Oscar Bonavena.

As I interviewed him, I recall Chuvalo snapping at me – given the big names he fought – “I see what you’re doing, you’re only asking me about the fights that I lost.”

As I meekly apologised, he interrupted to tell me he was joking.

He won 11 on the spin through ’66 and ’67 but then ran into Frazier in Madison Square Garden and Chuvalo was cut badly early. The would by his eye went down to the bone, which was broken. He needed surgery, but he fought on.

Reporter Mark Kram said Chuvalo had “a rocklike head” and that was meant as a compliment.

He took some monstrous blows against the Philadelphia left-hooker, his face turned purple, wrote one ringside scribe, and a blood vessel leading to his eyelid exploded.

“I thought my eyeball had been knocked out,” he later said.

Chuvalo had damaged it in an earlier fight and then again in sparring, so said he was “damaged goods” for that contest even before the first bell.

He was out for nearly a year and former heavyweight champion Joe Louis refereed his next fight, a stoppage of Canadian left-hander Jean-Claude Roy.

Chuvalo lost only one of his next 13 and scored arguably his best win, claiming the scalp of Jerry Quarry, back in the Garden, in 1969.

During that bout, Chuvalo’s eye again started to balloon but a left hook dropped Quarry and he was unable to beat the count. At least, he didn’t beat the count. Quarry later claimed he had not heard the referee over the din of the crowd.

“If you get hit with a good punch and you can’t tell nine from 10, what can you tell the guy?” joked Chuvalo, who made a respectable $15,000.

But a few fights later he was up to $50,000 when badly whipped by a marauding Foreman. As Chuvalo tended to his wounds afterwards, he was offered an ice pack.

“What’s that for?” he asked dryly.

In 1971 he lost to Jimmy Ellis but beat Cleveland Williams. In 1972 he lost a rematch to Ali over 12 but won two other bouts later that year, won two fights in 1973, two in 1977, one in 1978 and that was that.

“The Toronto Tank” – a name that never stuck – had fought 502 rounds as a pro.

He had more than played his part.

“When people think about the best heavyweights they think of my era,” he said. “It was the best era. There’s no question.”

**

Three of George Chuvalo’s sons left this world too soon, two by suicide and one by overdose. His wife, Lynne, kept a container of pills in the wardrobe for when all hope was lost and, after 36 years of marriage, she ventured upstairs, opened the wardrobe, opened the container and ended her own story of heartbreak.

George’s family had been decimated, but as he had done in the ring, he stood firm.

To this day, I remember asking him about suicide and he said, “Who in a normal life doesn’t consider it?” And it was the first time I learned that it was okay to talk about not being okay and learned the difference first-hand between suicidal ideation and suicide.

Drugs had ransacked Chuvalo’s family and he made it his mission to help others who were at risk. He started a charitable foundation, Fighters Against Drugs, and went to schools, prisons, and other community centres to tell his tragic story. Often, he’d receive a standing ovation.

He spoke with passion and from experience.

“It’s true, what can I say?” he replied, when I told him he’d led a tragic life.

“I’ve had more than my fair share. More than the average guy. I don’t know how to explain it. I guess I have whatever is in a person’s make-up that enables them to go through it. I don’t know. I only know how I would deal with it. I couldn’t tell you how anyone else would because I’m not you and I’m not them.”

Chuvalo was left with one son, Mitchell, and his grandchildren, and he said his world revolved around them.

In the coffee shop, George showed me photographs of his dead children, but he never cried. Like he was never dropped in the ring, he never shed a tear when we talked.

***

When lists of great features fighters possess are reeled out, Chuvalo is often the gold standard when it comes to ‘chin’.

Mike Tyson might have power. Ali might have charisma. Holmes might have the jab, but chin goes to George.

I asked him about his durability.

“If you have a neck like a stack of dimes you can know that guy’s getting knocked out,” George said. “I used to stand on my head a lot. A lot of people don’t understand. Fighters pay scant attention to the punch-absorbing muscles…. Very few fighters spend time on muscles to absorb punishment. I used to spend a lot of time on it. It’s important.”

But while Chuvalo knew he’d seemingly come through the battles unscathed, others were not so lucky. By the time we talked, many of his contemporaries had passed or were showing signs associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

“One man’s meat is another man’s poison,” he stated.

“Before I started fighting, I used to stutter and couldn’t remember a God damn thing. Now I remember everything and don’t stutter at all. I’m lucky that way, but to be honest with you, there’s a very popular misconception. The misconception is I got hit with every punch in the book. I didn’t get hit with one-tenth of the punches people thought I did… But you never know how you are going to be tomorrow. Like today I’m all right. Who knows how I’ll be tomorrow?”

****

Fortunately, it would take many years to reveal itself, but by 2019, the ugly decline brought about by too many punches to the head had taken a firm hold.

There were sad stories about George being so diminished that he was in a custody tug of war between Mitch and his second wife, Joanne.

In fact, a year earlier, in a Chuvalo vs. Chuvalo family case, the court heard that Chuvalo, then 80, “doesn’t have the cognitive ability to make a decision on whether to reconcile with his wife amid a family dispute.”

Even then, eight years ago, the Toronto Star told of Chuvalo’s “significant cognitive decline.”

It was sad to hear. While I’d met Chuvalo amid the autumnal showers in Canada, he was bright and breezy when we spoke, but he had to endure a long, cruel winter of his life.

*****

That will not be Chuvalo’s legacy, nor should it be. George’s story of survival and courage – particularly out of the ring – was inspiring, motivational and stirring. He had withstood a terrible burden but he’d carried it on his broad shoulders.

I asked George – more than 20 years ago – how he’d like to be remembered and he answered: “I just hope they remember me,” he smiled gently. “I kind of like, ‘He was a warrior.’ Exclamation mark. If my great, great, great, great-grandchildren say, ‘He was a warrior!’ then that’s good enough for me.”

I’ve not worn this shirt for 25 years.

It was the summer of 2001 and I was crashing on any number of sofas and pull-out beds in and around Atlantic City and spending countless hours with former light-heavyweight world champion Matthew Saad Muhammad.

He was labouring by day, making early starts, but we found plenty of time to talk, whether it was grabbing a sandwich here or there, going to fights, going to the gym… For it was Saad who often found me a place to stay at night.

I’d had plenty of nights in Atlantic City where I hadn’t had anywhere to go, and it’s not a pleasant place to be.

The homeless population drifts around the Boardwalk and the further you leave that comparative safe haven and head inland, well, you could be in real trouble.

Saad made sure I wasn’t.

*

(Matthew and I in Atlantic City)

During our chats, Matthew would confide in me about how and why life had gone wrong for him. He hadn’t got off to a great start. He was abandoned by his brother on instruction of an aunt when he was only four, left alone on the streets of Philadelphia.

An orphanage, foster care, prison, it all followed, but what he wanted more than anything was to find his family.

In my early-twenties, it was unfathomable how a man who’d made millions no longer had a home, many possessions or much of anything, and I recall asking him about his memorabilia.

Later, people told me it was stolen or sold. He assured me it was in a lock-up in New Orleans, and I think there’s a chance all three could be true.

I was broke. There’s no other way of putting it. I can’t even really explain how I stayed out in the US as long as I did on rations but I guess it doesn’t cost a lot if you’re often without a place to sleep and you build up a tolerance of going two or three days at a time without food.

But I decided, anyway, that I would thank Matthew for all he was doing for me so one day, out near Pleasantville, I went to a printing shop and had two T-shirts created, one for him and one for me.

They were the same. They were navy blue and had MSM and a pair of boxing gloves on the left chest and Team Saad emblazoned across the back.

Even me, at I think about 22, thought they looked like cheap knock-offs, but later that day I presented Saad with his.

“Oh geez, who’s this for?” he asked shyly.

“It’s yours,” I replied.

“Maaaaannnn. No way. Look at this,” he said holding it up and investigating the front and back.

He was infinitely more thrilled with it than I was, and if he was faking it he did a stellar job.

He hurriedly put it on over his existing T-shirt and looked at himself in a mirror.

He was genuinely elated. I felt both embarrassed at the tacky gesture but delighted it had gone down so well.

**

I didn’t see Saad in the T-shirt for a while, nor did I expect to. Team Saad was something from 1980, when Matthew was flying high as the WBC champion. His entourage reached out well into double figures… a photographer, a chef, a bag carrier, trainer, security, publicist et al.

During this summer of 2001, I had Matthew pretty much to myself. We went for a sandwich at the famous White House in the city. We went to a boxing event in Delaware and I served as a ring card guy for a women’s fight.

We spoke at length about life, death and religion in the aftermath of 9/11 and we - along with a mutual friend - came up with an elaborate plan to attend the postponed bout between Felix Trinidad and Matthew’s fellow Philadelphian Bernard Hopkins at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

The mutual friend was a low-key crook who’d spent years on boxing’s peripheries and, given that Don King was promoting the show, this guy hauled out an old DKP credential on a lanyard and started trying doctoring it so it would look like he had a way to get into the fight.

Read more