Notebook: SugarHill Steward aboard to train Jared Anderson
Inoue hits NYC, discusses future; Zepeda signs extension with Golden Boy; fights in works for Sept. 21 Joshua card; Quick hits; Show and tell
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Heavyweight contender Jared Anderson has made a trainer change heading into his fight with Martin Bakole on Aug. 3 at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.
He will be trained by SugarHill Steward, although Darrie Riley, who has trained him from Day 1 as a kid into the pro ranks, is expected to remain part of his corner.
The change was the idea of Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of the General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia, who is spearheading the Aug 3 event, which is headlined by Terence Crawford’s rise to junior middleweight to challenge WBA titlist Israil Madrimov.
“I want to thank Jared Anderson for taking my advice and seeking out coach and trainer Sugar Hill to train him for his upcoming fight,” Alalshikh wrote Sunday on social media.
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The 6-foot-4, 250-pound Anderson (17-0, 15 KOs), 24, of Toledo, Ohio, had previously met Steward, who is the nephew of the late, great Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward and trainer of former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury.
Anderson has drawn raves reviews from Fury for the work he has given him in training camps, where Steward got a close look at him.
Anderson, widely considered the top American heavyweight contender, is taking a major step up in opposition against the 6-6 Bakole (20-1, 15 KOs), 31, a Congo native fighting out of Scotland, who weighed 299½ pounds for his most recent fight, a fourth-round knockout of former world title challenger Carlos Takam in October on the Tyson Fury-Francis Ngannou undercard in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Inoue discusses future
Undisputed junior featherweight champion Naoya Inoue’s trip to New York last week included attending the 99th Boxing Writers Association of American awards dinner on Thursday night to receive the 2023 Sugar Ray Robinson Fighter of the Year award.
Inoue also visited Yankee Stadium to watch Japanese countryman Shohei Otani, perhaps the only bigger sports star in their country, and the Los Angeles Dodgers play the Yankees.
And then on Saturday night, Inoue attended the ESPN card put on by Top Rank, his co-promoter, at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, where he watched with interest from ringside as featherweight up-and-comer Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (12-0, 8 KOs) scored a one-sided eighth-round knockout of Brayan De Gracia in the co-feature before leaving before the Xander Zayas-Patrick Teixeira main event.
Carrington has been saying that he wants to fight Inoue when he arrives at featherweight, which will likely be next year, and perhaps Inoue wanted to see him up close. Carrington bowed to Inoue following his win and Inoue waved back to him.
Prior to Carrington’s bout, Inoue joined ESPN to discuss his plans. He said he has no specific timetable for moving up, although Top Rank is heavily involved in the featherweight division and can offer him meaningful fights as the promoter or co-promoter of IBF titlist Luis Alberto Lopez, WBO titlist Rafael Espinoza, former WBO titlist Robeisy Ramirez, Carrington and others.
“When I am ready to go up in weight and when my body is ready,” Inoue said through an interpreter when asked about when he would move up.
Inoue was also asked about a possible all-Japanese showdown with Junto Nakatani, who recently knocked out Alexandro Santiago to win the WBC bantamweight title Inoue used to hold. It also gave the southpaw Nakatani (27-0, 20 KOs), 26, titles in three divisions.
“He is already a good fighter,” Inoue said about Nakatani. “In the future, it would be nice to look forward to fighting him.”
Inoue (27-0, 24 KOs), 31, who is universally considered one of the top three boxers in the world pound-for-pound along with undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk and unified welterweight champion Terence Crawford, is a four-division division champion and one of only three men to be a four-belt undisputed champion in two divisions.
Inoue last fought in May, rising from the first knockdown of his career in the first round to stop former two-division titlist Luis Nery in the sixth round to retain the undisputed 122-pound title.
Zepeda contract extension
Lightweight contender William Zepeda has signed a contract extension with Golden Boy Promotions, the company announced on Monday.
“I am excited to announce that we have extended our agreement with William Zepeda. Golden Boy happily reaffirms our commitment to him and his career goals,” Golden Boy CEO Oscar De La Hoya said. “There is no one more exciting or dangerous in the lightweight division than Zepeda. Every time out, he is a threat to either break a CompuBox record or take out an opponent in the first round, or both.”
Zepeda (30-0, 26 KOs), 28, a southpaw from Mexico, is a relentless pressure fighter with big power and a withering body attack. In his last fight, on March 16 in Las Vegas, he bludgeoned Maxi Hughes into submission when his corner stopped the fight after the fourth round in their dual IBF/WBA 135-pound title elimination bout.
He is the IBF mandatory challenger for titleholder Vasiliy Lomachenko and the WBA’s No. 1 contender for the winner of Saturday’s fight between titlist Gervonta Davis and Frank Martin.
With neither of those title shots available to him immediately, Golden Boy announced last month that Zepeda would next fight Giovanni Cabrera (22-1, 7 KOs), 29, of Chicago, in the 12-round main event of a DAZN card on July 6 at Toyota Arena in Ontario, California.
“I feel very happy and very grateful to Golden Boy for giving our team a boost and giving us the opportunity to continue to be a part of such a great company,” Zepeda said. “My commitment and professionalism have kept the doors open for this contract extension. Together with my team and Golden Boy, we are lobbying for those great fights and a world championship in the near future.”
Quick hits
Riyadh Season’s first boxing event outside Saudi Arabia is Aug. 3 in Los Angeles and the second is Sept. 21 at London’s Wembley Stadium, where Anthony Joshua is slated to headline, probably challenging British countryman and IBF interim titlist Daniel Dubois, who is expected to be elevated to full titlist by then. The undercard likely will be stacked, a calling card of Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh, chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, which backs the events. It is a work in progress but sources told Fight Freaks Unite about bouts or fighters who could land on the show: lineal/cruiserweight titlist Jai Opetaia; middleweight contender Hamzah Sheeraz; the vacant WBO interim light heavyweight title bout between Joshua Buatsi and Willy Hutchinson; and a rematch of the heavyweight slugfest between Brits Fabio Wardley and Frazer Clarke, who battled to a draw March 31.
The IBF purse bid for the bout between junior lightweight titlist Anthony Cacace and mandatory challenger Eduardo Nunez (26-1, 26 KOs), 26, of Mexico, which was scheduled for Tuesday at 12 p.m. ET at the IBF offices in Springfield, New Jersey, and via video conference, has was postponed on Monday. The IBF did not give a reason in the letter it sent to its registered promoters but said “a new date will be communicated shortly.” Cacace (22-1, 8 KOs), 35, a southpaw from Northern Ireland, won the title via major upset when he stopped Joe Cordina in the eighth round May 18 on the Tyson Fury-Oleksandr Usyk undercard in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Julio Cesar Martinez (21-3, 15 KOs), 29, of Mexico, who recently relinquished the WBC flyweight title after making seven defenses and announced he was moving up in weight, likely won’t be making his 115-pound debut any time soon. Martinez has been suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for testing positive for banned “S5 diuretics and other masking agents” related to his majority decision win over Angelino Cordova on March 30 on the PBC card topped by Tim Tszyu-Sebastian Fundora at T-Mobile Arena. Diuretics are typically used to assist in making weight. Martinez is ineligible box for now in the United States and has a hearing scheduled in front of the NSAC on June 24, when he will likely find out the length of his suspension. The result of the fight also will be changed to a no contest.
Top Rank has moved top junior welterweight prospect Emiliano Vargas (10-0, 8 KOs), 20, of Las Vegas, the son of former two-time junior middleweight titlist Fernando Vargas, to its card on June 29 (ESPN) in Miami, that is headlined by lineal/WBO junior welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez’s defense against Steve Claggett. Vargas, whose bout will be part of the ESPN+ stream of preliminaries, will face Mexico native Jose Zaragoza (9-8-2, 3 KOs), 36, in an eight-rounder. The bout was initially slated for June 21 in Las Vegas on the undercard of WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinoza’s first defense against Sergio Chirino.
Amazon’s Prime Video announced that it will begin distributing PBC PPV events in the United Kingdom beginning with Saturday’s card headlined by WBA lightweight titlist Gervonta Davis defending against Frank Martin at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The event is available for purchase for all customers in the U.K., regardless of Prime membership.
Show and tell
After Mike Tyson was pummeled and knocked out by Lennox Lewis in their heavyweight title fight, he returned for a 49-second knockout of Clifford Etienne but then suffered a stunning fourth-round knockout loss to journeyman Danny Williams. It was clear Tyson was at the end of his career. But he pushed forward, primarily because he was in bankruptcy and needed the money, and was matched with the unknown Kevin McBride at what was then called the MCI Center in Washington, D.C.
Because I live in the Virginia suburbs outside of Washington, I spent a good amount of time with Tyson and Jeff Fenech, who trained him for the bout, before the crush of media hit town. I had two extensive pre-fight interviews with Tyson and was the only media member allowed to watch his final sparring session. He was in good spirits and appeared to be in good shape physically and excited for the fight. But on fight night it was clear he was a spent bullet and really didn’t want to be in the ring. He resorted to dirty tactics in the sixth round, when he tried to break McBride’s arm during a clinch and then he opened a cut over McBride’s left eye with an intentional head butt. Referee Joe Cortez docked Tyson two points for the foul. McBride said after the fight that Tyson also bit one of his nipples.
Just before the bell ended the sixth round, McBride bulled Tyson to the ropes and he went down to his rear end. Cortez ruled it a slip but Tyson obviously didn’t want to get up. He eventually did. The round ended and he returned to his corner, where he meekly quit on his stool. It was Tyson’s third loss in four fights and at the post-fight news conference the once great heavyweight champion announced his retirement — at least until he plans to exit a two-decade retirement to fight Jake Paul in November in an official bout. But the fight against McBride was on June 11, 2005 — 19 years ago on Saturday. Here is an extremely scarce thin cardboard site poster in my collection.
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Photos: Steward: Queensberry; Inoue: Naoki Fukuda; Zepeda/Cris Esqueda/Golden Boy Promotions
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