Boxing Blog – TSS Tidbits

(Press Release)

Temple Hill, MD October 31, 2005: Keystone Boxing announces their return to The Show Place Arena in Prince George’s County, MD on November 26th, 2005 in what will be an exciting card, highlighting the return home of current USBA Super Featherweight Champion Lamont “Bay” Pearson 22-3-1(12) and impressive up and coming DC area fighters, Henry “Sugar Poo” Buchanan 11-0(10), Purcell Miller 21-3(17) and Reggie Holly 5-0(2). The Thanksgiving weekend show, “In Yo’ Face at Show Place”, will bring boxing back to The Show Place Arena in a unique holiday show, combining exciting professional boxing with live music performances by Atmosphere.

Keystone, having recently promoted a very successful and entertaining card for over 5,000 guests at The Patriot Center in Fairfax, VA in September, is looking forward to returning to Maryland for the November 26th event. Promoter Gene Molovinsky, who founded Keystone Boxing seven years ago with the dual purpose of promoting professional boxers in the D.C. metropolitan area and revitalizing local interest in the sport, has promoted over twenty professional fight cards from Chantilly, VA to Baltimore, MD, with many stops in between. With the “In Yo’ Face At Show Place” event, Molovinsky plans to bring boxing back to the area with very reasonably priced admission for a night of extremely competitive fights and live music.

Tickets, priced at $25, $35, $50(reserved ringside), $75(VIP ringside which includes a VIP Prefight Meet and Greet with light fare) are on sale and available through all Ticketmaster outlets including The Show Place Arena box office, online at www.ticketmaster.com or via Phonecharge at 202-397-SEAT, 410-547-SEAT, or 703-573-SEAT. For more information you can visit www.showplacearena.com.

At the age of 34, former IBF no. 1 contender Lamont “Bay” Pearson is eager to prove that the best years of his boxing life are still in front of him. While the first six years of his career were filled with milestone fights and breakthrough performances, the last two have been mired with injuries and inactivity. He is now ready to revive his career having recently garnered the vacant USBA Super Featherweight Title with an impressive victory over Brooklyn’s Shamir Reyes.

Pearson, 22-3-1 with 12 KOs, has almost seen the top of the boxing mountain. In December 2002, he went to Bangkok, Thailand to challenge reigning WBA champion Yodsandan Nanthachi for the world championship in front of 75,000 fans. Pearson put up a valiant fight, but a broken right hand suffered in the second round all but dashed any hopes of pulling off the upset. He lost the fight, but gained a much more valuable perspective in the process – he knew he could fight with the best. Now, he just wants one more chance to prove it.

After a prosperous 85-fight amateur career, Pearson burst on to the profession scene in 1998. From 1998 to 2001, Pearson worked diligently in the gym and the results were visible in the ring, as he went undefeated in his first 18 pro fights. With the boxing world starting to take notice, Pearson got his first chance at a big fight in June 2001 against heavily-favored Carlos Navarro in Elgin, IL. He would pull off the upset over Navarro to claim the USBA Jr. Lightweight Title and no. 1 ranking in the IBF. Pearson would defend the USBA title once, another impressive showing, which led to an ESPN2 “Friday Night Fights” appearance six months later as the co-main event with James Toney. The string of stepping stone fights would eventually lead to his world title shot against Nanthachi, but he was unable to capitalize.

After two fights of struggling through setbacks with his injured right hand, Pearson decided to hang up the gloves for one year in 2004 to let the injury heal naturally. He came back in January 2005, and outclassed Ivan Alvarez over eight rounds to get back on the winning track. When the opportunity came in September 2005 to fight Reyes for the USBA title, Lamont knew he was ready. Like a fine wine, Pearson was only get better with age.

Back in the national spotlight, the Prince George’s County native is taking no time off either. Pearson, who works full time as a Prince George’s County postal carrier, has not let the newly won title go to his head. He has been back at work since the win, both in the gym and at the post office, and is looking fighting in the Main Event on November 26th, 2005 and the opportunity to show his talent in his own back yard.

The Co Main Event on Keystone’s November 26th card will feature DC’s undefeated dynamo Henry “Sugar Poo” Buchanan. Buchanan is perhaps the most exciting prospect to come from the DC area in the past few years. With an extremely impressive amateur career, Henry Buchanan has already made his mark in the region since his first professional fight in March of 2004. Buchanan, still undefeated at 11-0(10), trains hard and only improves with each fight.

Also being featured is one time local prospect Purcell “Hard Rock” Miller. In 1997, Miller, a DC native was an undefeated superstar with a record of 17-0, 16 kos. In October of that year he made an attempt to gain the vacant USBA Welterweight title against Raul Frank. The fight was grueling and went the distance with Miller loosing in a split decision. Purcell didn’t take much time off from the loss. Within the next year, he won two more fights, neither of which would have qualified as early or easy wins. By the summer of 1998, Miller was once again back in title contention. In July, feeling he was back up to the challenge, the DC native made another bid, this time challenging Carl Daniels for the USBA Light Middleweight Title. Unfortunately Purcell lost in a unanimous decision. This loss sent Purcell back to the gym and also a nearly a year out of the ring. The time off seemed to prove to have paid off when his return to the ring in June of 1999 resulted in a first round knock out of his opponent. In April of 2000, Purcell Miller, then 21-2, 17kos took a fight in and another loss on his record. Purcell has once again gone the distance in a very tough fight, but lost the decision. It has been more than five years since Purcell has stepped in to the ring to fight. After a long hiatus from the sport, Miller is back. He has been training hard and is looking to move back into contention. With a record of 21-3 (17), Miller has the persistence and the power to once again make an impact in the junior middleweight division.

Undercard bouts will also include undefeated DC native Reggie Holly 5-0(3), Waldorf cruiserweight Nick Caroleo 1-0, and other regional fighters to be announced.

(Press Release)

Junior middleweight Rudy Cisneros, 7-1 (6KO’s), fresh off a stunning second round knockout victory last week, has just been added to the huge SOLO BOXEO DE MILLER/PRIDE AND GLORY card set for Friday, November 11th at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom.

PRIDE AND GLORY, promoted by Dominic Pesoli’s 8 Count Productions, HOME OF THE BEST IN CHICAGO BOXING and Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions along with with Miller Lite and TCF Bank, is headlined by a ten round lightweight battle between Juan “The Hispanic Causing Panic” Lazcano, 34-3-1 (26KO’s) of El Paso, TX and Courtney Burton, 21-4 (11KO’s) of Grand Rapids, MI. The Aragon Ballroom is located at 1106 W. Lawrence, 1/2 block east of Broadway on the North Side of the Windy City. Tickets, starting at $25, can be purchased in advance by calling 312-226-5800. Doors will open at 6pm with the first bell at 7pm for this event.

Cisernos is fresh off a second round knockout of hot prospect Raul Cazares last Friday night at the Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, California. Using his hammer like left hook, Cisneros dropped Cazares, 9-2 (4KO’s) three times before the bout was stopped near the end of the second round. The 24 year old Chicagoan was a bronze medalist in the 2004 Olympic Trials, a two-time U.S. Championship Silver Medalist and a Chicago Golden Gloves Champion amongst his many decorated achievements as an outstanding amateur boxer.

More information on Cisneros’ fight will be announced shortly. The entire card is as follows;

Juan Lazcano vs. Courtney Burton, ten rounds, lightweights
Oscar Bravo vs. Ted Muller, ten rounds, super middleweights
Jose Hernandez vs. Armando Cordoba, ten rounds, featherweights
Rudy Cisneros vs. TBA, junior middleweights, six rounds
Francisco Rodriguez vs. Tim Carrizales, six rounds, bantamweights
Jimmy Sandoval vs. TBA, six rounds, lightweights
Trinidad Garcia vs. Fred Thomas, six rounds, junior middleweights
Barbaro Zepeda vs. Omar Reyes, six rounds, featherweights

Hank Kaplan of The Sweet Science is not just the foremost boxing historian in the world, he is also well-known throughout the boxing industry for his integrity. In this segment, Hank talks about his involvement as one of the guardians of the induction process for the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and his recent trip to Philadelphia to interview fighters for Boxing Channel, with Charles Jay of Boxing Channel Radio.

To access the podcast, simply click on the icon below. And please, allow a moment or two for it to download.

Weeks after the fact, people are still talking about Erik Morales’ loss to Zahir Raheem at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. On this edition of the Russ Anber Show, the veteran Canadian trainer and co-host of “In This Corner with Russ Anber” on The Sports Network (tsn.ca), sdmits he can’t understand the kind of rationale that would have put Morales in the ring with Raheem in the first place. He talks to Charles Jay of Boxing Channel Radio about that, the future of Raheem, the Pacquiao-Morales rematch, and the wisdom of fighters “biting off more than they can chew” in often vainglorious attempts to move up and conquer other weight divisions.

To access the podcast, simply click on the icon below. And please, allow a moment or two for it to download.

Hank Kaplan, a feature writer and columnist for The Sweet Science, is boxing’s foremost historian, having seen it all over the last 70 years. His archives are easily the most extensive in the world, numbering millions of documents. How did he accumulate it all? Charles Jay of Boxing Channel Radio discusses it with him, in this fascinating piece.

To access the podcast, simply click on the icon below. And please, allow a moment or two for it to download.

It was with great disgust that I watched Jose Luis Castillo have his armed raised in victory Saturday night. The lack of discipline, professionalism and integrity displayed by Castillo and his team was appalling, but not shocking; this is, after all, boxing.

The fighter’s meek, “I’m sorry,â€? after failing to make 135-lbs. was about as convincing as Keanu Reeves acting, which is to say it was a complete crock. Missing the weight by two pounds, even the first time, was not a surprise to the Castillo camp. Any boxer who is struggling to make weight is hitting the scale before and after every workout — and especially after every meal — in the days leading up to the fight. It’s an obsession.

So the Castillo camp knew the morning of the weigh-in that their charge was considerably over the 135-lbs. limit. And they knew it as they left their room Friday afternoon for the weigh-in. Castillo’s so-called doctor tampering with the scale is further evidence.

The fight was for the lightweight title; it was promoted and publicized that way. Not the welterweight title. Why bother having weight classes?

Diego Corrales played by the rules and, except for a career high purse, came out the loser. Would he have won had Castillo trained properly and exercised self-discipline? I didn’t think so going in. But who knows. What effect will the beating Castillo inflicted on him the second time around take? Only time will tell.

What is the deterrent for fighters not making weight? The Nevada Commission’s penalty is lame, just as most of their solutions. A 10% fine is a joke, especially when the fighter is making a career-high payday. Castillo didn’t get to leave the ring with the WBC belt. Big deal. The victory has made him a hot commodity and set up a rubber match in which he’s sure to earn more than $1 million.

Canceling the fight all together would be a calamity. The fans, the promoter and every other entity that took part in the promotion would lose a lot of money. Nobody wins there. A stiffer fine may compel the overweight boxer to say “the hell with it�, go ahead with the fight, but only give a token effort.

The promoter and the commission have responsibilities as well. They owe it to the ticket-buying public, onsite and pay-per-view, to ensure that both fighters have trained – properly – and are in excellent shape. A boxer should be within a certain percentage of the weight when the fight is signed. The commission should monitor both fighters at two-week intervals at six-, four- and two-weeks before the fight. This way, if a boxer is not hitting his interval goals, the promoter has the option of canceling the fight.

What I propose is a suspension for everyone responsible: the fighter, manager and trainer. It would have to be for at least a year, perhaps even 18 months. Interrupting a fighter’s career, a trainer not being able to work a corner or a manager being denied the opportunity to earn money in boxing would motivate and focus the entire camp’s attention on not only making the weight, but doing it properly. No starving, no drying out, no nights in the sauna.

This protects the fighter’s health, the promoters’ investment and also ensures that you, the fan, can see a fight in which both boxers have trained properly for a world championship event.

What do you think?

(Veteran scribe Ed Maloney, who has written for the likes of Newsday, ESPN.com and CBS Sportsline, is Executive Editor of The Sweet Science and a special contributor to the TSS blog)