Notebook: Collazo-Niyomtrong strawweight unification on tap
New gig for Golovkin; Baumgardner retains undisputed women's junior lightweight title; Quick hits; Show and tell
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Oscar Collazo, the WBO strawweight titleholder, and Thammanoon Niyomtrong, who holds the WBA belt, will meet in a rare 105-pound title unification fight, Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez told Fight Freaks Unite.
They are slated to meet on the “Latino Night” card that Golden Boy is putting on with Riyadh Season on Nov. 16 (DAZN) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez and Chris Billam-Smith will square off to unify cruiserweight titles in the main event.
The fight comes as somewhat of a surprise because when the card was announced earlier in September, Collazo was due to defend against Mexico’s Edwin Hernandez (13-2-1, 4 KOs).
However, Gomez said that all along the hope was for a unification bout between Collazo and Thailand’s Niyomtrong (also known as Knockout CP Freshmart).
“We reached out to the Thais months ago about the fight but (Niyomtrong) had another fight scheduled and we told them we can’t wait to see if he comes out OK,” Gomez said. “So we said we would make a fight for Collazo but have an out and revisit it if Niyomtrong won his fight and came out clean and still wants the fight.”
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Indeed, Niyomtrong (25-0, 9 KOs), 34, who is the longest reigning active male world titleholder, having held his belt since 2016, traveled to Perth, Australia, and won a majority decision over Australia’s Alex Winwood on Sept. 7 to retain his belt for the 12th time.
He still wanted to fight Collazo and Gomez said the deal is agreed to.
“We are in the process of going through the contracts,” Gomez said, adding that Hernandez is being paid a fee for his trouble and would be considered as a challenger next year.
Collazo (10-0, 7 KOs), 27, a Puerto Rican southpaw, made his third defense via unanimous decision over Gerardo Zapata on June 7 in Verona, New York, as part of the annual International Boxing Hall of Fame induction weekend.
Collazo set the record for fewest fights needed by a Puerto Rican boxer to win a world title when he stopped Melvin Jerusalem in the seventh round of his seventh fight in May 2023 in Indio, California.
Golovkin’s new gig
Former unified middleweight champion and surefire future Hall of Famer Gennadiy Golovkin was appointed this week as chairman of a new Olympic commission by World Boxing, which is the international federation established to help keep boxing as an Olympic sport, it was announced this week.
Golovkin, a 2004 Olympic silver medalist, is the current president of the National Olympic Committee in his native Kazakhstan.
In his new role, Golovkin will work with World Boxing’s leadership to manage the organization’s relationship with the International Olympic Committee and oversee the pathway to ensuring that boxing is restored to the program for the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Boxing is not currently scheduled to be included in those Games though it is one of the oldest sports in Olympic history.
World Boxing, launched in April 2023, has 44 national federations as members, who aim to preserve boxing as an Olympic sport.
“For me personally, as well as for all the sports world, it is important to preserve boxing as an Olympic sport, and this will be my top priority,” Golovkin said. “I also intend to work closely with the IOC on issues of boxing’s commitment to the Olympic values of honesty, fairness and transparency.
“I am confident that my experience as a professional athlete will help build systemic work within World Boxing, and through joint efforts we will be able to give boxing a new impetus to its development, but there is still much to be done.”
The status of boxing in the Olympics has been an issue for the IOC because of years of rampant corruption by the International Boxing Association, which used to oversee the Olympic boxing tournament. It was so bad that that IBA was suspended from running the tournament and it was run for the past two Olympics by the IOC. The IOC set an early 2025 deadline for another governing body to be in place to run the tournament.
Golovkin (42-2-1, 37 KOs), 42, has not formally announced his retirement from boxing but he not fought since moving up to super middleweight and losing a unanimous decision to bitter rival Canelo Alvarez challenging him for the undisputed title in their third fight in September 2022. Golovkin was still a unified middleweight titleholder after that bout and said he would return to 160 pounds to defend the belts but wound up vacating and has not discussed another fight since, at least publicly.
Baumgardner retains title
Undisputed women’s junior lightweight champion Alycia Baumgardner retained her belts against WBC mandatory challenger Delfine Persoon (49-3, 19 KOs), 39, of Belgium, via fourth-round no contest on Friday night at the Lux Studios in Atlanta.
Baumgardner was fighting for the first time in 14 months since testing positive for a banned substance following a unanimous decision over Christina Linardatou in July 2023 in Detroit.
The fight ended in the fourth round after an accidental head butt opened a cut over Persoon’s eye and after much discussion and an examination by the ringside doctor it was determined that the former two-time lightweight titleholder could not continue. Because four rounds had not been completed the fight was ruled a no contest as Baumgardner (15-1, 7 KOs), 30, of Detroit, made her fifth overall title defense since winning the WBC belt by knocking out Terri Harper in the fourth round in November 2021.
The fight was put on by Global Combat Collective, which won promotional rights to the bout at a purse bid, but it was the final fight of Baumgardner’s deal with Matchroom Boxing.
However, Baumgardner manager Keith Connolly told Fight Freaks Unite on Saturday that he plans to meet with Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn in the next few weeks to discuss her future before talking to any other promoters.
“Her orders to me were to get her a big fight whichever direction we go in next,” Connolly said.
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 three fights: WBO women’s welterweight titlist Sandy Ryan’s defense against Mikaela Mayer and junior middleweight Xander Zayas against Damian Sosa in the top two bouts in the Top Rank card Friday night and WBO women’s lightweight titlist Rhiannon Dixon’s defense against former two-division titlist Terri Harper in the Matchroom Boxing main event on Saturday on DAZN. We also took viewer questions and comments and discussed the latest boxing news! Please check out the show here:
Richard Torrez Jr. interview
Coming off his one-sided fifth-round disqualification win over Joey Dawejko last Saturday night on the Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card, heavyweight prospect Richard Torrez Jr., the unbeaten 2020 U.S. Olympic silver medalist, spoke to TJ in a special edition of our podcast. Give it a listen, a review, and also subscribe to get an alert when the next episode is available. New shows every Thursday and Sunday night (and occasional special episodes like this one).
Quick hits
Weights from Sheffield, England, for the Matchroom Boxing card Saturday (DAZN, 2 p.m. ET): Rhiannon Dixon 134.9 pounds, Terri Harper 134.7 (for Dixon’s WBO women’s lightweight title); Peter McGrail 121.8, Brad Foster 121.5; George Liddard 160.5, George Davey 158.5; Galal Yafai 114.5, Sergio Orozco Oliva 113.8; Giorgio Visioli 133.1, Diego Lagos 130.8; Josh Babb 119.7, Kelvin Madjid 119; Ibraheem Sulaimaan 131.7, Kevin Trana 135.4; Jimmy Sains 162.2, Omir Rodriguez 161.5; Brandon Scott 124.9, Callum Turnbull 123.8; Connan Murray 157.2, Marco Simmonds 158.3.
Former WBC flyweight titlist Charlie Edwards (19-1, 7 KOs), 31, of England, outpointed Thomas Essomba (13-8-1, 4 KOs), 36, of England, to win the European bantamweight title in the main event of a Wasserman Boxing card on Friday at York Hall in London. Edwards won 118-111, 117-111 and 116-112 in what was something of a family feud fight because Essomba’s manager is former IBF flyweight titlist Sunny Edwards, who is Charlie’s older brother. Essomba was making his second defense.
WBO welterweight titlist Brian Norman is scheduled for his first defense against Derrieck Cuevas in the co-feature of lightweight Keyshawn Davis’ homecoming fight against Gustavo Lemos on the Nov. 8 Top Rank Boxing on ESPN+ card at the Scope in Norfolk, Virginia. However, Norman’s bout is in jeopardy. Norman has suffered a hand injury and may have to postpone the bout, a Top Rank official told Fight Freaks Unite. Atlanta native Norman (26-0, 20 KOs), who at 23 is boxing’s youngest active male titleholder, is coming off his biggest win in May, when he knocked out unbeaten and heavily favored Giovani Santillan to win the vacant interim belt in San Diego, Santillan’s hometown. In August, Norman was elevated to full titlist when Terence Crawford vacated.
Super middleweight up-and-comer Osleys Iglesias (12-0, 11 KOs), 26, a former amateur standout from Cuba fighting out Germany, will face Petro Ivanov (18-0-2, 13 KOs), 28, a Ukraine native also fighting out of Germany, in a 12-rounder that will headline an Eye of the Tiger card on Nov. 7 (ESPN+, 6 p.m. ET) at the Cabaret du Casino de Montreal in Montreal. “Osleys Iglesias is on the fast track because, as seen in his recent performances, he has quickly proven that he is ready for the toughest challenges. Petro Ivanov is one of them,” EOTT president Camille Estephan said. “We’re bringing two ranked, undefeated, and hungry boxers into the same ring, and I won’t hide the fact that we’re aiming to make this an IBF eliminator bout.”
Show and tell
Jermain Taylor lived up to the hype coming into the pro ranks off a bronze medal in the 2000 Olympics by outpointing Bernard Hopkins to win the undisputed middleweight title and become the second fighter to hold all four major belts simultaneously. Then Taylor beat Hopkins in a rematch and went on to defend against Winky Wright (in a draw), Kassim Ouma and Cory Spinks. Then Taylor, who was down to holding the WBC and WBO belts, was matched with unbeaten Kelly Pavlik, a big puncher, who had earned the WBC mandatory position with an exciting knockout of Edison Miranda on the Taylor-Spinks undercard. Taylor and Pavlik met in a highly anticipated fight at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which was filled with thousands of Pavlik fans who made the trip from his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio. I covered the fight at ringside and that weekend the famed boardwalk was filled people wearing Ohio State gear, an obvious sign who they were there rooting for.
The fight was a dramatic classic. From the opening bell they went to battle. In the second round, Taylor dropped Pavlik with an onslaught of shots and looked he was on the verge of a knockout. The late, great referee Steve Smoger allowed the fight to continue and Pavlik made it out of the round. He began to come back and tagged Taylor with many hard shots as they traded. Taylor was ahead on all three scorecards going into the seventh round when Pavlik hurt him with a right hand that sent him staggering to a corner and then cleaned up on him with a flurry of unanswered punches. Taylor dropped to the mat in a heap in a corner and Smoger emphatically waved it off, causing a wave of emotion from Pavlik’s fans to engulf the arena in an electrifying moment I will never forget. The fight was on Sept. 29, 2007 (and voted fight of the year by the Boxing Writers Association of America) — 17 years ago on Sunday. Here is a rare site poster that hung in a light box at host casino Caesars Atlantic City during fight week in my collection.
Show and tell II
Bernard Hopkins routed Keith Holmes to unify the IBF and WBC middleweight titles in the semifinals of the four-man Middleweight World Championship Series and a month later Felix Trinidad debuted in the 160-pound division and destroyed William Joppy to win the WBA title and a belt in a third weight class. That set up the final that was expected when promoter Don King and HBO put the tournament together. It was created to crown an undisputed middleweight champion — when a fighter needed only those three belts to achieve that status — but in reality was meant as a vehicle to advance Trinidad’s stardom. He was the favorite against Hopkins in the final that would also give the winner the Sugar Ray Robinson trophy created for the event.
The final was scheduled for Sept. 15, 2001. Of course, four days earlier the United States, and New York in particular, was attacked on 9/11. The fight, like everything else, was postponed. Hopkins left New York and returned to his hometown of Philadelphia while Trinidad remained in New York and, along with King, did what they could to lift the spirits of the first responders. Nobody knew when the fight would be rescheduled but eventually it was and, in by far the most emotional night I’ve ever had at ringside, the fight took place at a mostly full Madison Square Garden. Nobody really knew how to act. People were happy to be back at a big sports event but the sadness of what New York and the country were going through was palpable. We were all basically in tears when Hopkins came to the ring to Ray Charles’ brilliant rendition of “American the Beautiful” and when Trinidad came to the ring wearing an NYPD hat. The tears continued to flow during the national anthem.
The fight then took place but without the usual electricity associated with a big fight, in part, I am sure, because Trinidad, the heavy crowd favorite, was being taken apart by Hopkins. Hopkins dominated before finally knocking Trinidad out in the 12th round for his most iconic victory. The fight had been postponed for two weeks and took place on Sept. 29, 2001 — 23 years ago on Sunday. Here is an HBO PPV poster in my collection that has the original date of the fight on it as no new ones were made. Even my ringside credential is still dated Sept. 15.
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Photos: Collazo: Cris Esqueda/Golden Boy; Golovkin: World Boxing; Baumgardner: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom Boxing; Dixon-Harper: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing
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I agree nando
I hope Boxing fans take in Oscar Collazo. He's the best Puerto Rican fighter on the planet and deserves consideration for Top 10 P4P. An extremely entertaining Boxer/Puncher, that goes for knockouts.