Notebook: Beterbiev and Browne quiet before their light heavyweight storm
Vargas-Smith/Sor Rungvisai-Cuadras doubleheader; Inoue wins by KO; Santa Cruz returning to featherweight; Russell-Magsayo site set; Quick hits; Show and tell
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Unified light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev and mandatory challenger Marcus Browne were men of few words at their pre-fight news conference on Wednesday, leaving more of the discussion to their trainers.
Beterbiev, the two-time Russian Olympian and unified WBC/IBF champion, relocated to Montreal when he turned pro, but will fight in Quebec for the first time in five years when he meets Browne in the main event of the Top Rank Boxing on ESPN+ card on Friday (ESPN+, 8 p.m. ET) at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
“I’m very enthusiastic about this fight. It’s been a long time since we have been able to defend the titles in front of a crowd in Montreal, and we look forward to that,” said Marc Ramasy, Beterbiev’s trainer. “It’s been a great training camp. We’ve seen Marcus before, so we know his strengths and weaknesses, and you will see what happens on Friday night.”
In his last five fights Beterbiev (16-0, 16 KOs), 36, who is the only reigning world titleholder with a perfect knockout percentage, fought four in a row in the United States before having a Russian homecoming defense in March, knocking out Adam Deines in the 10th round.
Now, he is set for his fifth title defense and a Montreal homecoming fight.
The last time Beterbiev boxed in Quebec amounted to a cameo appearance — a first-round knockout of Isidro Ranoni Prieto in December 2016 in the fight before he won the vacant IBF belt by 12th-round knockout of Enrico Koelling in November 2017 in Fresno, California.
Beterbiev had very little to say at the news conference, offering only, “We are ready. We had a good training camp, and I am ready to show my best on Friday night.”
He will face 2012 U.S. Olympian Browne (24-1, 16 KOs), 31, of Staten Island, New York, whose only loss came by eighth-round technical decision to former champion Jean Pascal in August 2019. Browne won his only fight since, a shutout 10-round decision over journeyman Denis Grachev in an April tune-up fight for the title shot.
After that fight, Browne, a former interim titlist, parted ways with longtime trainer Gary Stark Sr. and is being trained by Derrick James for the title fight.
“I found out when we got here that Marcus was a huge underdog, and we embrace that,” James said. “This will be a historic fight. After Marcus wins the title, it will make me the only trainer in history to have three unified champions at the same time: Marcus Browne, Jermell Charlo and Errol Spence.”
Charlo holds three of the junior middleweight belts and Spence holds two at welterweight.
“I know who I am. I know Marcus will do what I ask him to do,” James said. “When he came to me, he was already a good fighter and I just helped him build on that. I believe in myself, and I believe in Marcus.”
Browne showed respect for Beterbiev, but sounded confident.
“He’s a tough customer, but on Friday night, we are changing the narrative,” Browne said. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe, and come Friday night, you will see. I’m tired of talking. I want to fight.”
Feb. 5 DAZN card
The junior middleweight fight between Jessie Vargas and Liam Smith, which has not been formally announced but was ticketed to headline a Matchroom Boxing card on DAZN on Jan. 29 at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, is moving to Feb. 5 at the same venue, a source with knowledge of the plans told Fight Freaks Unite.
Vargas (29-3-2, 11 KOs), 32 of Las Vegas, a former junior welterweight and welterweight world titlist, who is running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Nevada’s 4th Congressional District, has been idle since a decision loss to Mikey Garcia in a February 2020 welterweight fight. Smith (30-3-1, 17 KOs), 33, a former junior middleweight titlist, is coming off an impressive eighth-round knockout of Anthony Fowler on Oct. 9 in their hometown of Liverpool, England.
In the co-feature, according to the source, former WBC junior bantamweight titleholders Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and Carlos Cuadras will meet for the vacant WBC title, which Juan Francisco Estrada relinquished in favor of accepting the “franchise” title in order to skip the mandatory with Sor Rungvisai so he could complete his trilogy with Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez.
Sor Rungvisai (50-5-1, 43 KOs), 35, of Thailand, will have the opportunity to avenge an eighth-round technical decision loss to Cuadras (39-4-1, 27 KOs), 33, of Mexico, that ended his first WBC 115-pound title reign in May 2014.
The WBC has said it will order the winner of Estrada-Gonzalez III, which is likely to take place in mid-March, to meet the Cuadras-Sor Rungvisai II winner in the final of what amounts to a four-man tournament at 115-pounds between fighters who have faced each other already.
The four fighters have faced each other a total of 10 times in a round robin of bouts that has produced one action battle after another. Gonzalez is 1-1 against Estrada, 0-2 against Sor Rungvisai and has beaten Cuadras. Estrada is 1-1 against Sor Rungvisai and 2-0 against Cuadras, who is 1-0 versus Sor Rungvisai.
FITE in Focus
I joined my friends at FITE for a panel discussion previewing the cruiserweight rematch between popular social media personality and novice boxer Jake Paul and former UFC champion Tyron Woodley, which takes place on Saturday (9 p.m. ET) at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida. The card is available via pay-per-view on FITE around the world except in the United States, where it is on Showtime PPV, and Latin America. We discussed the main event as well as the undercard. Watch the show here:
Inoue stops Dipaen in 8th
Unified bantamweight champion “The Monster” Naoya Inoue knocked out game Thai challenger Aran Dipaen in the eighth round of his sixth title defense on Tuesday in Tokyo.
Inoue (22-0, 19 KOs), 28, of Japan, dominated with his jab to keep Dipaen at bay before finally sending him to the mat with a six-punch combination that ended with a sweeping left hook and sent Dipaen (12-3, 11 KOs), 30, staggering backward and down to his rear end. Dipaen, his nose bleeding, beat the count but when Inoue nailed him with a follow-up left hook that rocked him moments later, referee Michiaki Someya stepped in at 2 minutes, 34 seconds.
Inoue, who dominated the fight from start to finish, battered Dipaen to the head and body and was ahead 70-63 on all three scorecards at the time of the stoppage.
“Though I hit him hard, very hard, he kept a straight face. He might have studied my style very well,” Inoue said in translated remarks. “He withstood my strong shots, which I admire.”
Dipaen was OK with the stoppage, saying in translated comments, “Inoue was the very hardest puncher I have met. I was badly hurt, but I endured and endured for all the Thai people. But my accumulation of punishment couldn’t allow me to go on.”
Inoue next hopes to unify titles by facing WBC titleholder Nonito Donaire in a rematch of their 2019 unification bout that was the consensus fight of the year or WBO titlist John Riel Casimero.
“I truly wish to unify the bantamweight belts by fighting Nonito Donaire and/or John Riel Casimero next,” Inoue said. “But if the negotiation should take so long, then I may consider moving up to the 122-pound category.”
In the co-feature, Japan’s Masataka Taniguchi (15-3, 10 KOs), 27, stopped fellow southpaw Wilfredo “Bimbito” Mendez (16-2, 6 KOs), 25, of Puerto Rico, in the 11th round to take his WBO strawweight title.
Taniguchi knocked down Mendoza, who was making third defense, in the second round and was ahead 97-91, 97-91, 93-95 going into the 11th round when he landed a furry of punches, which prompted referee Nobuto Ikehara to stop it at 1 minute, 8 seconds.
Santa Cruz returning to featherweight
Last week the WBA sent a letter to featherweight titlist Leo Santa Cruz asking him to notify the organization of his plans because while he has fought at junior lightweight, where he also won a title before losing it by brutal sixth-round knockout to Gervonta Davis last year, he has not defended the featherweight belt in nearly three years, since February 2019.
According to the WBA, Santa Cruz responded this week and said he will return to featherweight to defend his title. The WBA said its response was that it will allow Santa Cruz a warm-up fight, since he has not boxed since the loss to Davis in October 2020, and then he must defend the title. He will be ordered to face the winner of the fight between secondary titlist Leigh Wood and mandatory challenger Michael Conlan, who are slated to meet on a date to be determined in the first quarter of 2022.
Santa Cruz (37-2-1, 19 KOs), 33, of Rosemead, California, has fought twice at junior lightweight since last boxing as a featherweight, the loss to Davis and the vacant title win by decision over Miguel Flores in November 2019.
Russell-Magsayo site
WBC featherweight titlist Gary Russell Jr.’s mandatory defense against Mark Magsayo on Jan. 22 (Showtime) now has a site: the Borgata in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Sean Gibbons of Pacquiao Promotions, Magsayo’s promoter, told Fight Freaks Unite.
Russell (31-1, 18 KOs), 33, of Capitol Heights, Maryland, has had just six fights since 2014 and will be fighting for the first time since February 2020. Magsayo (23-0, 16 KOs), 26, of the Philippines, earned the title shot with a highlight-reel 10th-round knockout of Julio Ceja in an Aug. 21 eliminator on the Pacquiao-Yordenis Ugas undercard in Las Vegas.
The card is also slated to include a rematch between New York-based Russian junior welterweight Petros Ananyan (16-2-2, 7 KOs), 33, and Subriel Matias (17-1, 17 KOs), 29, of Puerto Rico. Ananyan scored a knockdown and upset Matias in a 10-round decision in February 2020 on the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder II undercard.
In an untelevised bout, junior middleweight Evan Holyfield (8-0, 6 KOs), 24, of Atlanta, the son of legendary former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, will take part in a six-rounder against an opponent to be determined.
Quick hits
Junior flyweight titlist Hiroto Kyoguchi (15-0, 10 KOs), 28, of Japan, and secondary titlist Esteban Bermudez (14-3-2 10 KOs), 26, of Mexico, will meet in a mandatory fight on Jan. 15 at a site to be announced in Mexico. The winner will be the lone 108-pound WBA titlist as the organization is steadily working to reduce the number of titles it sanctions. The sides recently made a deal prior to a purse bid taking place.
Knockout CP Freshmart (23-0, 9 KOs), 31, of Thailand, knocked out Robert Paradero (18-2, 12 KOs), 25, of the Philippines, in the fifth round to retain his WBA strawweight title for the 10th time on Tuesday in Phuket, Thailand. CP Freshmart, who defended his title for the second time in two months, knocked out Paradero with a right hand at 1 minute, 28 seconds. Paradero lost his second fight in a row, having dropped a split decision to secondary titlist and countryman Vic Saludar in February in the Philippines.
Former junior welterweight world title challenger “Hammerin’” Hank Lundy (31-10-1, 14 KOs), 37, of Philadelphia, has announced his retirement from boxing following a second loss in a row on Saturday in Liverpool, England, where Robbie Davies Jr. knocked him out in the second round on the Conor Benn-Chris Algieri undercard. “Hard work & wanting a better life for my kids got me here but I can’t be selfish watching my loved ones go through pain when I’m hurt. It hurts to say that I’m retiring from boxing,” Lundy wrote on social media. “Thank you for all you have blessed me with and some of the most memorable fights. … Hammer out. Thank you.” In a 15-year career, Lundy won various regional titles and was a regular in televised fights. His biggest win was a sixth-round knockout of former lightweight titlist David Diaz in 2011. In his only world title appearance, Lundy faced then junior welterweight titlist Terence Crawford at Madison Square Garden’s Theater in New York in an HBO main event in 2016 and got knocked out in the fifth round.
Show and tell
England’s Prince Naseem Hamed was a sensation at home. The flashy and, oh, so brash featherweight world titlist was selling out arenas before his opponent had even been announced. Then he would inevitably score a knockout following his over-the-top ring walk and a flip over the top rope into the ring. A few of his fights had been on Showtime and even on ABC, but then HBO signed him to a fat contract in 1997 and the first fight was his American debut. He came to New York’s Madison Square Garden to defend his title against crowd-pleasing New Yorker Kevin Kelley, a former world titlist and big talker.
The fight got massive hype and exceeded even the wildest expectations. After Hamed made an unforgettable and prolonged ring walk, he and Kelley engaged in an all-time classic slugfest in which they combined for six knockdowns. Hamed was down in the first, second and fourth rounds and Kelly was on the deck in the second and twice more in the fourth, when Hamed knocked him out. HBO’s legendary commentator Larry Merchant dubbed it as the “Hagler-Hearns of featherweight fighting.” There is no higher praise for an intense and dramatic fight. The memorable Hamed-Kelley shootout, one of my all-time favorite fights, was on Dec. 19, 1997 — 24 years ago on Sunday. Here is a program from the fight in my collection.
Beterbiev-Browne photo: GYM; Inoue-Dipaen photo: Naoki Fukuda; Santa Cruz photo: Nabeel Ahmad/PBC
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Looks like we got three cards this weekend of boxing about six fights that look interesting that I can sit thru. Plus the info of possible fights developing yea sounds about right. Keep it going bc you never know things change fast in the fight game. Much appreciated, thanks for the write up.
Estrada, SSR, Cuadras and Gonzalez = The REAL 4 KINGS of this era.
Not the lightweights that most claim to be.