Notebook: BWAA finalizes ballot for 2024 awards in eight categories

Puerto Rican amateur standout Lozano signs with Finkel, Warren; Sadam Ali launching comeback; Quick hits; Show and tell

Dan Rafael

Jan 19, 2025

Oleksandr Usyk is a finalist for 2024 BWAA fighter of the year

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Make sure to check out the 2024 award stories

Lozano going pro with Finkel, Warren

Puerto Rican amateur standout Yandiel Lozano, an 18-year-old featherweight, is going pro with a Hall of Fame manager and promoter behind him.

Lozano, who boxed mostly as a lightweight in the amateur ranks, has signed with renowned manager Shelly Finkel, who then signed him with Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions, which has begun to branch out from signing mostly British fighters.

Lozano’s pro debut is targeted for March.

“I am deeply thankful and honored to have the opportunity to work under the leadership and guidance of two Hall of Famers — promoter Frank Warren as well as my manager Shelly Finkel,” Lozano said. “I am eager to get started on this journey and with their support and knowledge we will aim for the very top. I will be joining the professional ranks as a featherweight, a division that has given Puerto Rico a lot of glory in the past, and I now look forward to making my country proud of me in the future.”

Lozano, who began boxing at 7 and is trained by Juan “Memo” Lopez and Jose Garcia, was reportedly 119-9 as an amateur. Among his amateur accolades: a silver medal at the 2024 IBA World Youth Championships; four-time champion of the Bert Sugar Tournament, Florida Junior Silver Gloves champion, two-time Puerto Rican National Champion, two-time Scholastic Games champion and champion of the Roy Jones Tournament.

“I am hugely excited to bring yet another exceptional young fighter to Queensberry,” Warren said. “With our DAZN broadcast partnership fast approaching (in April), we stated our intention to widen our talent pool beyond the U.K. and return to promoting in overseas territories. Yandiel will play a big part in our new horizon when he enters the professional ranks with us.

“We have always enjoyed a strong friendship and long-standing working relationship with his manager, Shelly Finkel, and I am extremely happy to be working with him to develop the career of Yandiel.”

Sadam Ali comeback

Former WBO junior middleweight titlist Sadam Ali is launching a comeback.

He is scheduled to face an opponent to be named in a 10-rounder on Feb. 23 (BXNGTV.com) at Kings Theater in his hometown of Brooklyn, New York. The fight will headline a card Ali’s company, World Kid Promotions, is putting on.

The fight will be Ali’s first in nearly six years. He has not boxed since suffering an upset third-round knockout loss to Anthony Young in May 2019 on the Canelo Alvarez-Daniel Jacobs undercard at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

In 2017, Ali (27-3, 14 KOs), 36, who was a 2008 U.S. Olympian, scored the biggest win of his career when outpointed Hall of Famer Miguel Cotto in a massive upset to win the WBO junior middleweight title at New York’s Madison Square Garden and sent Cotto into retirement.

Ali lost the title by fourth-round knockout to Jaime Munguia in his first defense in May 2018.

“I took a little time off from boxing,” Ali said. “A break from something I’ve done my entire life. I was a 2008 Olympian and world champion for a reason. I’m all in. I got the itch. I’m excited and ready to go. My comeback will be step by step to get some rust off. I know I can do it, and I will. It’s time to go.”

The card will also include former IBF lightweight titlist Richard Commey, who will face an opponent to be named in an eight-round welterweight bout.

Commey (30-5-1, 27 KOs), 37, a Ghana native fighting out of Bronx, New York, 1-3-1 in his last five bouts, a rut that began with a second-round knockout loss to Teofimo Lopez that cost him his world title in December 2019. Commey is coming off an 11th-round knockout loss to former unified junior welterweight titlist Jose Ramirez in a WBC junior welterweight title eliminator in March 2023.

Seconds Out appearance

I joined my friends at Seconds Out to discuss a whole slew of boxing topics, including the prospect of Anthony Joshua against Deontay Wilder emerging as a possibility again, the social media back and forth between Gervonta Davis and Terence Crawford, plans for a Devin Haney-Ryan Garcia rematch, Chris Eubank Jr.-Conor Benn, Tyson Fury’s retirement, and more. Check out the video here:

BetUS Boxing Show

If you missed the BetUS Boxing Show live at 1 p.m. ET on Friday on YouTube, please check out the replay (and also subscribe to the YouTube channel). We previewed and picked Naoya Inoue’s undisputed junior featherweight title defense against late replacement Ye Joon Kim, which will take place this coming Friday in Tokyo (before we do the next episode). We also took viewer questions and comments and discussed the latest boxing news! Please check out the show here:

Quick hits

IBF featherweight titlist Angelo Leo’s trip to mandatory challenger Tomoki Kameda’s hometown of Osaka, Japan, for his first defense is being planned for May 24, Top Rank told Fight Freaks Unite, confirming a Boxing Scene report. They made a deal last month and while Leo told his hometown Albuquerque Journal (New Mexico) that it would take place March 22, that was not set. Leo (25-1, 12 KOs), a former WBO junior featherweight titlist, scored a massive one-punch, left-hook KO of Luis Alberto Lopez in the 10th round to win the featherweight belt on Aug. 10 in Albuquerque. On Aug. 24 in Osaka, Kameda (42-4, 23 KOs), 33, a former bantamweight titlist, scored a fifth-round knockdown and won a split decision to avenge a split decision loss to South Africa’s Lerato Dlamini in their rematch/IBF title eliminator to become Leo’s mandatory challenger.

Ahead of the light heavyweight showdown between WBC interim light heavyweight titlist David Benavidez and WBA “regular” titlist David Morrell on Feb.1 (Prime Video PPV, PPV.COM, 8 p.m. ET) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Prime Video debuted the first of its two-part docuseries “Gloves Off” on Saturday. It is available on demand. The series “explores the back stories” of the two fighters as well as delves into their preparation for the bout. The series is narrated by Barry Pepper.

Order Benavidez-Morrell on PPV.COM

Show and tell

Roy Jones Jr. and Felix Trinidad were two of the biggest stars of their time. Jones won world titles in four divisions from middleweight to heavyweight (he skipped over cruiserweight) and Trinidad won titles in three divisions from welterweight to middleweight. Had Trinidad defeated Bernard Hopkins in their 2001 fight for the undisputed middleweight title, the plan was for Trinidad to move up in weight and face then-light heavyweight king Jones. Hopkins, of course, stopped Trinidad and there went the fight, at least when they were still at the top of the sport.

But years later, with Jones faded and Trinidad coming out of a nearly three-year retirement — but both still with huge names and devout fan bases — promoter Don King put the fight together at 170 pounds. Given where both fighters were in their careers it had no right to be as big as it was, but nostalgia sells. They put on a big-time promotion that had many genuinely excited to see these greats in the ring with each other at New York’s Madison Square Garden. In the end, 12,162 turned out and another 500,000 bought the fight on HBO PPV to see what ended up being a pretty entertaining fight, which I covered at ringside. Jones, however, largely dominated. He knocked Trinidad down in the seventh and 10th rounds and won 117-109, 116-110, 116-110. Trinidad retired for good after the fight and although Jones would fight for another 10 years it was the last significant victory of his legendary career. Here is a really cool promotional cardboard standee in my collection from the fight, which took place on Jan. 19, 2008 — 17 years ago on Sunday.

More show and tell

Hall of Famers Floyd Mayweather and the late Diego Corrales were on a collision course as undefeated junior lightweight titleholders, who were both with Top Rank and both on HBO. They appeared on a doubleheader together and then the fight was finally made, although Corrales vacated his title so he could make the match rather than be forced into a much lesser mandatory defense.

The showdown came less than a year into my time covering boxing. I had been to Las Vegas two months in a row to cover my first fights there — Lennox Lewis-David Tua and Felix Trinidad-Fernando Vargas, both at Mandalay Bay — and then went back for a third month in a row to cover Mayweather-Corrales. It was the first fight I covered at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, where I have covered more fights than any other venue. At this point, I have covered around 100 events there.

The build up to the fight was incredibly rancorous. Corrales, who went into the fight knowing he was headed to prison soon after the fight due to a domestic violence conviction, had been a dominating knockout machine and I picked him to win. It was the only time I ever picked against Mayweather and I learned my lesson. Mayweather put on an absolute masterpiece that I consider his greatest performance. He knocked Corrales down five times in a brilliant showing before Corrales’ corner threw in the towel after the fifth knockdown in the 10th round. The fight was Jan. 20, 2001 — 24 years ago on Monday. Here is a very limited HBO poster from the fight in my collection and my ringside credential.

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