By Norm Frauenheim-

Top Rank is poised to hit the re-set button next week, mid-week, with live telecasts, the first in about three months, which is only a short season on a calendar that has been stripped of its ordinary reliability by the extraordinary.

Spring turns to summer no matter what, but it’s hard to know whether a long-awaited succession of opening bells continues to ring into autumn and winter with something that sounds like business-as-usual.

We’ll begin to find out, first Tuesday with featherweight champion Shakur Stevenson (13-0, 7 KOs) in a 130-pound bout against Puerto Rican Felix Caraballo (13-1-2, 9 KOs) and again Thursday with former 122-pound champion Jessie Magdaleno (27-1, 18 KOs) against Dominican Yenifel Vicente (36-4-2, 28 KOs in a featherweight bout, both on ESPN and both in a ballroom at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Convention Center.

They are ordinary fights anytime other than now. The pandemic makes them extraordinary for what is known and unknown. Empty seats are the only sure thing.

Fans won’t be there.

Media won’t be.

Maybe, COVID-19 won’t be, either. That’s the idea, yet that’s all it is in what is essentially a couple of test runs in boxing’s first concerted attempt since the ring lights went dark in late March.

“This is something that nobody, at least from our end, has experience with,’’ Top Rank’s Bob Arum said Thursday during a conference call that included Stevenson and Caraballo. “It’s really been a work in progress, and it continues to be a work in progress.

“Imagine, as guys come into Vegas, they got to go into what is a bubble.

They’ve got to be escorted to a place where they can shake out, train. There’s a place to eat. We have a special dining room set up in the convention center. All of this is something we’re not used to. We’re not starting out with title fights. But maybe in a few weeks, we’ll start doing some title fights.

“There are issues with the organization. So, it’s not easy. We’re doing it one step at a time.’’

Arum has divided the comeback into phases, much like state governments are doing with the plan to re-open restaurants and businesses. This week, Phase One, is just an attempt to see what works. What doesn’t.

Phase Two would include a mix of second-tier title fights and perhaps a measured return of ringside media. Along the way, fans would be brought back, first in limited seating and then until all the seats can be filled without fear of a widespread infection of the dangerous virus.

Underlining it all is testing. Test before training. Before dinner. Test, test, test at all times. Arum estimated testing for each card costs more than $25,000.

“Just for testing,’’ Arum said. “Plus, the rooms, special security, the meals. This is a very, very large undertaking. But, obviously, we’ve get to get it done. We’ll probably be doing this for three months – June, then July and probably August.

“Hopefully by September, we’ll get back to doing events with spectators in a limited capacity.

“Then, hopefully by the end of the year, we’ll be doing events with virtually full capacity.’’

If it all works, then maybe – just maybe – boxing will be back to what it was by year’s end or early 2021. That would mean Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder 3 and perhaps a third fight between Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin. All kinds of intriguing fights have been speculated. Terence Crawford-Manny Pacquiao has even been mentioned.

But it all depends on what begins to happen next Tuesday and Thursday. It is the logistical origin of a potential template that could guide a sport as old as any back to its future or send it down a path to its place in a post-pandemic era.

By Norm Frauenheim–

The Forbes list used to belong to Floyd Mayweather Jr., who became better known for dominating the money ranks than the pound-for-pound ratings.

Dollars buy crossover fans and Mayweather seemed to have an endless supply. The cash filled his suitcases and the minds of young fighters, who wanted to spend like him even if they couldn’t fight like him.

The biggest reward for the smallest risk, a ratio and a role model, became as important as any combination of punches. No matter what the sport, Mayweather employed it as effectively as anyone ever has.

But the ratio is vanishing in a pandemic for which there has been no apparent immunity. The risk is still there. Boxing without risk is aerobics. Have a nice workout. But the reward is eroding at a rate that will soon force fighters to think twice about that inherent risk.

The latest Forbes list of the world’s highest-paid athletes was released about a week ago. It includes four boxers – Tyson Fury at No. 11 with $57 million, Anthony Joshua at No. 19 with $47 million, Deontay Wilder at No. 20 with $46.5 million and Canelo Alvarez at No. 30 with $37 million.

At the top, Roger Federer, who is the first tennis player to ever be ranked No. 1 with $106.3 million in earnings and endorsements for the period between June 1, 2019 and June 1, 2020. He won’t be standing in line at any food banks before his next match.

Nevertheless, the list is a red flag, an early earning sign of financial trouble awaiting all sports and especially boxing, which includes few guarantees, other than stitches and scars.

Start at the top. Federer is there with income less than half of what Mayweather earned during days when he was No. 1 often enough to be named for the list. In 2018, Forbes Mayweather led the way with $285 million, most of it from his all-reward and no-risk dance with Conor McGregor, a mixed-martial arts performer then posing as a boxer.

Two to three years later, the money looks to be vanishing faster than a full-time job. Top-to-bottom, the pay-for-play list for the top 100 is down nine percent from what it was a year ago. Cancellations started in late February and never stopped until the entire sports landscape went dark in April.  Forbes predicts a steeper decline in its next list. No play, no pay.

https://www.forbes.com/athletes/#696328ea55ae

There are signs that some sports will return this summer in an abbreviated format. The NBA and NHL are talking about schedules at single sites in a format that would essentially be a payoff schedule. For now, baseball is locked into talks about money. Thus far, players are balking at proposed pay cuts.

Boxers aren’t that lucky. During the pandemic, they aren’t collecting any pay anyway. They are independent entrepreneurs. They have to fight to get paid, contract-to-contract. Boxing is set to hit the re-start button on June 9 in a bout featuring emerging featherweight champion Shakur Stevenson against Felix Caraballo in Las Vegas. Further bouts are scheduled throughout June and July.

But, essentially, they will be studio shows. In an effort to safeguard fighters and officials from catching the lethal coronavirus, there will be no fans. No ringside media. The bouts will be televised by ESPN, which is desperate for live content.

Yet, the absence of a live crowd limits the purse. That might be OK for young boxers still fighting to make their name. But for the established star, there’s no chance at earning the big money that was a hallmark of the Mayweather era and its immediate aftermath during pre-pandemic days.

Without a live gate, it’s hard to foresee Fury-Wilder 3 or a third Canelo Alvarez-Gennadiy Golovkin fight any time soon. How about Terence Crawford-versus-Errol Spence Jr.? Not this year, if ever.

No live gate also looms as a potential complication for Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino Senator who had been hoping to fight sometime this summer.

Pacquiao had been fighting for about $20-million. That’s a big number. He’ll be 42 on Dec. 17. That’s a short window for a fighter near retirement.

A solution? There might not be one during a stretch when the money will be short and Forbes forgettable.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Canelo Alvarez is fighting for history. At least, he was, pre-pandemic, last November in his light-heavyweight stoppage of Sergey Kovalev. But history, like profit, has been suspended for who-knows-how-long because of COVID-19.

Alvarez is lucky. He was a wealthy man before the virus appeared and spread its deadly appendages like a weapon of mass destruction. Over just three fights in his rich DAZN deal, he earned $97.5 million, more than enough to pay for a lifetime of bills and a few Ferraris.

Canelo doesn’t have to fight, unlike most in the prize-fighting profession who are praying for some sort of paycheck in studio shows that figure to begin next month. But if money isn’t a motivation anymore, Canelo’s immense pride is. That’s why the reigning middleweight champion talked – and talked — about history before an 11^th-round knockout of Kovalev Nov. 2 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand in his first and only fight at 175 pounds.

For Alvarez, history isn’t complicated. It’s simple. Singular. Julio Cesar Chavez is the defining face of Mexico’s fabled boxing history. He was when Canelo was born in 1990. He has been ever since.

In winning a title in a fourth weight class, Canelo had begun his monumental pursuit of supplanting Chavez. His run at history was underway. Now, a pandemic-altered landscape includes a potential dilemma for Canelo and DAZN.

History or profit?

Money or legacy?

Canelo’s claim on legacy is hard to make, much less sustain, when he’s not fighting. Inactivity opens the way to a skepticism that’s hard to counter. Think of LeBron James in his great debate over who’s The GOAT: James or Jordan?  James’ only argument is to play, just play. Yet just as the pandemic shuts down the NBA, the ESPN documentary, The Last Dance, reminds us just how good Michael Jordan was. Without another season and another title run, James has no way to further his claim on being basketball’s best ever.

James has to play.

Canelo has to fight.

Until then, it’s hard to argue with legendary trainer Nacho Beristain, who questions whether Canelo will be remembered as Mexico’s best ever.

“I think it is going to be a little difficult for him to end up being one of the best fighters to come out of Mexico,’’ Beristain told El Boxcast. “He is a good fighter, no doubt about that. I particularly feel how he boxes is attractive. But for him to be the best pound-for-pound, he’s not and he’s not going to be.

“I think they are intelligently evading some middleweight fighters who may harm him and are taking care of his career because they are making a lot of money. To a certain extent he is good, but I think he is not the best.”

The money is a staggering complication, the proverbial devil in the looming dilemma.

It’s easy to say that making history is the goal when you’re making $32.5 million-a-fight. That has been Canelo’s guarantee for each fight in the landmark, $365-million contract he signed with DAZN in 2018. He beat Rocky Fielding, Danny Jacobs and Kovalev in the first three bouts of an 11-fight deal. They were solid victories, but forgettable on a historical scale. Canelo, a former junior-middleweight champion, won a fringe 168-pound title against Fielding, retained his middleweight supremacy against Jacobs and won a fourth division title against a fading fighter, yet a known name in Kovalev.

Short-term, it did not answer questions still lingering in the wake of two fights with Gennadiy Golovkin. There was a draw and then a narrow scorecard victory for Canelo, who won a majority decision in the rematch. History and DAZN demand something definitive. But the world is operating on a different a timetable these days. Tick-tock, we’re all on the pandemic clock. There was talk about a third GGG-Canelo fight in September. Then, there was talk of interim bouts — Canelo-versus-Billy Joe Saunders and GGG-versus-Kamil Szeremeta before the final leg in a trilogy.

“We realistically want two fights this year,” Canelo trainer Eddy Reynoso told Box Azteca. “We couldn’t fight in May, so we are looking at September and December. We’re talking about [opponents] like Billy Joe Saunders.

“There’s also Caleb Plant and the WBC world titleholder at 168 pounds [David Benavidez]. There are several [options] … Golovkin could be the fight for December. His people have already said that he doesn’t want to fight Canelo until after the [Kamil Szeremeta] fight.”

When fights were cancelled, DAZN lost subscribers. Can the streaming network even afford to pay Canelo his minimum anymore? Will former subscribers renew after months of lost wages? Would Canelo be willing to make less money while he tries to make history?

Only the virus knows.

By Norm Frauenheim

In case you haven’t heard or seen, Mike Tyson is coming back. That’s news, of course. But it’s strange to call his plans a comeback. When did he ever leave? He’s always in the public imagination. In deed. In name. In words. And now in video.

Video of Tyson in the gym went viral during a time when a real virus has kept so many at home with nothing much to do other than fantasize. Yeah, It’s Mike all right, waking up the past with echoes of his crazy power.

It’s fun to watch. It’s even fun to wonder.

Still, I’m not sure Tyson can still fight at 53 years old. Precedent and caution say no. But Tyson is nothing if not unprecedented.

Above all, the power in his ability to fascinate and entertain remains undiminished. Forgettable he’ll never be. At one level, it’s astonishing how much attention he can still generate. The internet is on fire with talk of him fighting Evander Holyfield.

Forget that it’s supposed to be a four-rounder for charity. Headlines, driven by runaway imaginations, frame it as the third fight in a rivalry with more imagined sequels than just another trilogy.

The hunt for the last piece of Holyfield’s ear from the 1997 Bite Fight might already be underway. In perhaps an apocryphal story, it was found on the canvas by maintenance, placed on a cocktail napkin and then lost in a cab during a wild ride from the MGM Grand to a Las Vegas emergency room after Tyson bit it off in the third round.  Maybe, the National Geographic Channel can find it preserved in gold at a pawn store or buried in liquid nitrogen in a cryonics coffin beneath the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign.

It’s a story that will never go away. Then again, neither will Tyson. In a twist on an old line, you just can’t make him up. His craziness is a jagged collection of contradictions, yet genuinely compelling.

To this day, I’ll always remember him from a moment a couple of decades ago when he was living and training at the old Central Boxing Gym in downtown Phoenix. It was July. In the Arizona desert, only hell is hotter and not by much. Tyson was in the gym. The doors were wide open. A few box fans provided the only AC. Tyson was happy. I was sweating.

Turns out, it was a day when Tyson just wanted to talk. There were pigeons and food and philosophy and history and music. He talked and talked some more. Finally, I told him I had to leave. He follows me out of the gym and to my truck. I open the truck’s door and put my right foot inside the cab. Suddenly, I feel a hand as heavy as an anvil land on my left elbow.

Whoa.

Remember, Mike wanted to talk.

So, I listened.

I’ll never forget the power, running from his hand through my arm, like a force of nature. With one yank, he could have ripped my arm from my shoulder. I stood there, right foot in the truck and left foot on the street, planted by that one hand.

He was frightening.

He was fascinating.

He was everything then that he is today.

Even on video, that compelling mix is evident. People watch, still watch, in part because Tyson’s extremes can’t be faked. Genuine is an increasingly rare commodity in our fake-news world. In Tyson, it’s still there, abundant as it is vulnerable

Truth is, I’d rather Tyson not fight at all. There’s too much risk for him and the 57-year old Holyfield. I’m not convinced either will ever answer another opening bell anyway. Mind and name recognition might withstand the cumulative damage from blows over more than half a century. But the body will not.

Injuries in training are a real risk, perhaps one that will be enough to cancel plans to fight again. We don’t need to see a Tyson comeback. He’s not going anywhere anyway.   

By Norm Frauenheim-

Mike Tyson wants to fight four-rounders. So, does Evander Holyfield.  I’ll let you figure out where that leads. The public imagination is capable of just about any fantasy these days. There’s not much else to do.

The imagination is an escape, a refuge from the tragedy of a pandemic that kills those we love, those we admire and those we wish we had known. There are no baseball standings. No NBA box scores. No opening bell. There’s only the obit page. It’s endless, columns of names, some celebrity and some anonymous, yet all gone.

There’s been a lot of talk about business-as-usual this week. That would be nice. Something to hope for. Pray for. But, for now, it’s another fantasy, just like Tyson-Holyfield 3. The obit page says that intensive care and funeral homes will be doing most of the nation’s business for a while.  

Jimmy Glenn’s name is on that page today. Glenn, 89, died early Thursday after a long battle with coronavirus. He was an amateur boxer, trainer, a cut man, manager and bartender. It was his bar, Jimmy’s Corner near New York’s Times Square, that has become a defining piece of real estate for a sport that has seen it all.

Glenn had seen it all. Or at least most of it. He used to talk about fighting former heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson as an amateur. Patterson won.

“But I went the distance,’’ Glenn told The Sweet Science in 2005.

He could have been a contender, too.

For 50 years, his bar became a gathering place for the contender in all of us.

The walls are covered with the posters and memorabilia that decorate scarred gyms everywhere. History fills the place like a shot glass. Tourists step in to gawk. Fight fans gather to debate or celebrate what they’ve just seen at Madison Square Garden. Writers are there to drink in the history and any other potent spirit.

Like so much else about boxing, the place is a mix of fact and fable. Among all of the photos, there’s one of Muhammad Ali, overlooking the bar. Then there’s a still from Raging Bull, the classic film starring Robert De Niro in his role as Jake LaMotta. The movie’s closing scene was filmed at Jimmy’s Corner.

Jimmy is gone.

His Corner is still there, a heartbeat for a sport and world in desperate need of one.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Nostalgia will survive the pandemic. So, too, will boxing, the world’s second-oldest profession.

A sure sign of boxing’s resiliency, its heartbeat, is in the interest for the video about the good old days that the networks are playing during coronavirus shutdown.

From Ali and Frazier, to Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Hagler, Hearns and all the rest, the legends are as current as they’ve ever been. They live on while the world has stopped, anxiously awaiting an end to a virus as dangerous as any since 1918.

The Spanish Flu was around then.

 So, too, was Jack Dempsey.

I’m not sure there’s another Dempsey, who won his first heavyweight title on July 4, 1919 and went on to be one of history’s iconic champions during the 1920s. Film on ESPN and Showtime of the greats over the last 50 years is a library full of evidence that confirms how much better the fighters of yesterday were than they are today. Above all, there were just more of them.

But the coronavirus tragedy is a painful lesson about history, good and bad. It does repeat itself.  Boxing’s history is as rich as it is long. There’s plenty to repeat.

It’s anybody’s guess as to whether it will. Or even can. The economics, post-pandemic, are problematic, at best. But the attempt is already under way.

Last Saturday, there was a card in Nicaragua at a Managua arena named for another legend, Alexis Arguello. Fighters went into the ring wearing masks. Former pound-for-pound No. 1 Roman Gonzalez was there, doing interviews with his mask in place. Fans were scattered throughout the arena, separated by at least two empty seats between them.  It was awkward, but it was a first bell after a couple months of a sobering silence.

Expect more.

More of the awkward.

A card is scheduled for May 23 in Patzcuaro, Mexico. It’s a joint promotion – Roy Jones Jr. and Carlos Molina’s King Carlos Promotions. Fans won’t be there. The card will be available, live-streamed with Molina (31-11-2, 10 KOs), a former junior-middleweight champion, in the main event against Michi Munoz (27-10-1 8 KOs).

Then, there are plans for junior-bantamweight champion Emanuel Navarrete to fight in an Azteca TV studio in Mexico City on June 6, according to The Athletic. The bout is subject to approval from Mexican health officials, who presumably would try to protect the fighters from the virus before they endanger each other.

Meanwhile, there are plans in the UK for a possible return to the ring in July. The British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC) announced it was ready to work with UK health officials, if and when restrictions are lifted sometime this summer.

“Depending upon Government decisions it is hopeful that professional Boxing will commence in July 2020 and we will continue to use our best endeavours to do so and are working closely with our Promoters,’’ the BBBofC said in a statement this week.

The initial plan is to stage the cards without a live audience. Only fighters, a referee, judges, regulator, cameras and health officials will be there. Given fears about crowds these days, there’s a chance that few fans would show up, even if allowed.

According to a poll from National Public Radio (NPR)/PBS News Hour/Marist this week, 91 percent said it was a bad idea for large groups of people to attend sporting events.

The other nine percent might have been boxing fans, a small number, yet maybe as historically resilient as ever.

By Norm Frauenehim-

Big fight weeks are little bit like the seasons. They are on the calendar, a date to anticipate, celebrate and debate. Next week was supposed to be Canelo Alvarez-Billy Joe Saunders. Maybe, the May 2^nd bout in Las Vegas would have been a good one. Maybe, it would have been a colossal dud.

But at least it would have been there, a reliable moment for the week-long routine before any opening bell. The give-and-take can be funny, then compelling, sometimes bloody, always edgy and often outrageous. It’s a crazy mix, but the chaos is imminent.

You can plan for it.

Not much to plan for now.

That calendar is as empty as the Vegas Strip. The emptiness is unnerving. It’s impossible to plan for what can’t be seen.

No neon, no nothing.

There’s no telling when the lights will come back on for boxing, or much of anything else these days in a world gripped by a crippling pandemic. We stay at home. We stay a so-called safe distance away from friends and neighbors. We stand in line outside of grocery stories, hoping to score a roll of toilet paper and looking for shelter at the first sound of a dry cough.

We watch bikers stare down nurses wearing masks in front of state capitols in protests that include people wearing AK-47s. I like the nurses’ chances at shooting down coronavirus a lot better than any of the thugs with weapons. The nurses are lot smarter. A lot tougher too.

I’d also prefer to see a Canelo-Saunders stare-down, too. It’s a lot safer.

There was a time when it looked as if Canelo-Saunders might mark the beginning of a boxing comeback from the pandemic. But that was before the Strip went dark, before the crowds moved out and the coyotes moved in. That was a couple of months ago. Seems like a different era now, and it was in ominous ways that continue to emerge.

There’s no telling how long the virus will hang around. There’s no idea whether it will vanish during summer heat and then make a vicious comeback in the fall. There’s just that emptiness.

Canelo, himself, hopes to be back in the ring in September, perhaps for a third middleweight-title fight against Gennadiy Golovkin.

“In my mind, I’ll be fighting in September, so hopefully this whole issue will pass and we can follow through with that possible date,’’ Canelo told Box Azteca.  “I do not know what is coming next, because everything is off. There were very good plans for this 2020, so hopefully in a month we will see positive results.”

If there was anywhere to place a bet on that in Vegas right now, you probably wouldn’t get very good odds. Increasingly, sports look as though they won’t be back as we know them until there’s a vaccine. That probably means next year.

Big crowds are where the virus gets transmitted the most. The beginning of the pandemic in northern Italy has been blamed on a soccer game in Milan. The pandemic took root in Louisiana because of the Mardi Gras party up-and-down Bourbon Street in New Orleans. If the virus has a chance to come back after a summer departure, it’ll happen while tailgating before a college football game or in the beer line before opening bell to a big fight in Vegas.

Germany just announced it has cancelled Octoberfest, Mardi Gras with a German accent. It’s a sure sign that the virus is expected to be around in some way through the end of this year, or at least until there’s a vaccine.

Boxing already has modest plans for its initial return. Top Rank’s Bob Arum is exploring ways to put together cards that will provide some live content for ESPN, perhaps as early as this summer. But the big bouts – a Canelo-Saunders kind of bout – will have to wait.

“There’s a limit to what we can do,” Arum told Top Rank’s Crystina Poncher in a two-part interview in the Catching Up With Crystina series. “It’s not going to be easy. Everybody has to be patient.’’

The cards would essentially be studio events, featuring fighters who would ordinarily appear on undercards for major bouts. There would be no fans. No live crowds mean no known stars. Promoters need the big gate to pay the big purses.

“Where the gate money is so much a big percentage of the revenue, I don’t see how you can do it without spectators,” Arum said.

That raises another question. When the pandemic ends, will anybody have enough money to buy a ticket at pre-coronavirus prices? Will the game’s richest fighters be willing to accept a fraction of the money they earned before the pandemic? Unemployment is projected to be at Depression-like levels.

Pockets figure to be empty.

Hard to plan for that, too.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Pro wrestling is essential, at least it is in Florida, which apparently needed something to replace spring break and Mickey Mouse as a necessary diversion during the pandemic.

It sounds silly. Make that bizarre. Then again, pro wrestlers do wear masks, more to shock and mock than to protect. They’ll wear them into the ring, but maybe not into the grocery store.

Put it this way: There’s no disguise for it. Crazy is essentially everywhere these days, especially in Florida, my old home state. But the essential craziness knows no borders, any more than coronavirus does. It infects, destroying body and mind in just about any zip code. These days, home is Arizona, where golf has been deemed essential.  

At opposite ends of the Sun Belt, common sense, essential to survival in just about any time, is a casualty at this time. Try telling medical personnel that golf and pro wrestling are essential, too. A 9-iron is as essential as a respirator? If you say yes to that one, you’re essentially a fool or a Donald Trump supporter.

Trump is in the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) Hall of Fame. It’s no coincidence, then, that Florida deemed the WWE as essential at a cuckoo kind of news conference Monday in Orange County, Orlando, where the WWE has a rehearsal/training facility somewhere near Disney World. Only the citrus is real.

WWE chief executive Vince McMahon and his wife, Linda McMahon have given millions to Trump’s campaign. Trump, a Florida resident, appointed Linda McMahon to lead the Small Business Administration. She quit about 14 months ago to take a leading role in Trump’s 2020 campaign.

Nothing in this scenario is surprising. The money is a map. Follow it to a destination as scripted as any WWE event.

To use Trump’s language, it’s fake. Fixed. He likes it that way. He’s good at it, too. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be in the WWE Hall of Fame.

The trouble with Florida’s official declaration of the WWE as essential, however, is the potential opening it gives boxing and other sports. Top Rank’s Bob Arum told ESPN that he’s exploring ways to get ready for the day when the sport can resume.

“We would sanitize the Top Rank gym, limit the availability to those in the program and bring everybody into Vegas,’’ Arum said. “If the hotels aren’t open, rent them a facility to live in and get them ready when we do open up and we do the events with the testing and so forth, whether it’s in California, Nevada, Texas or Florida, any of those places.

“So, we’re working on all of that, but again, it’s a work in progress because we’re flying blind.”

But history already includes an ominous warning. Among the many parallels to the infamous Spanish Flu more than a century ago, there is a deadly chapter involving boxing, according to a story Thursday in The Guardian.

Bouts were suspended in October 1918 because of the pandemic. But they were allowed to resume that November. Eight boxers, two promoters and one gym owner died, according to The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/apr/16/what-ufc-can-learn-from-boxings-mistakes-during-the-spanish-flu-outbreak

History, like common sense, should be essential. But it’s another casualty.

Trump’s push to resume business as usual includes a 16-member advisory group. Vince McMahon is one, of course. So, too, are owners and officials from the NFL, major-league baseball, NBA, NHL, golf, tennis and soccer. Dana White, UFC chief and Trump friend, is part of the group, too. A week after ESPN and parent-company Disney said no to his plans for a UFC event on Native-American property in Central California, White still vows to stage mixed-martial arts on an island.

Notably missing from the panel is anybody from boxing, not even Don King, who partnered with Trump in promoting Mike Tyson. Trump doesn’t have too many friends in boxing these days. Arum rips him readily and often. According to Arum, Trump still owes him about $2.5 million for Evander Holyfield’s 1996 decision over George Foreman in a fight hosted by Trump’s failed Atlantic City casino.

But Trump apparently wants live sports back on his television screen. He said he’s tired of baseball reruns. That, apparently, has reignited interest in baseball moving to Phoenix for a season played at spring-training parks and the Diamondbacks home, Chase Field. Reportedly, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey is already talking with baseball officials. He can’t play essential golf all day, after all.

How exactly the baseball suggestion would work, however, is still anybody’s guess. Games would be played without fans in the seats. Players would be tested for the virus constantly. They would be quarantined in hotels between games. They would be quarantined in buses to and from games. In a sport with so many moving parts, it sounds like everything else during days when a major victory means you’ve found a few rolls of toilet paper on otherwise empty shelves.

Essentially impossible.

By Norm Frauenheim-

At first, Dana White said he was going to stage the UFC’s next event on an island. Then, there was news that he decided on Native-American land in Central California, instead.

Guess Rikers Island wasn’t available.

Turns out, nothing was.

White can bully reporters, but he couldn’t bully his bosses at ESPN and parent-company Disney to go forward with his plans for UFC 249 on April 18. They said no.

“The powers that be there asked me to stand down and not do this event,” White said Thursday in an interview with ESPN, which was contracted to televise the event.

It was a surprising move. ESPN is desperate for live content. White is nothing if not defiant and defiance defines the UFC, even more so than boxing.

White expressed it in a style both pugnacious and pigheaded throughout the last several days. The cage czar sounded as if he still believes that coronavirus is either a hoax or as harmless as the common cold.

A mounting death toll says something else.

Defiance isn’t a vaccine

Yet, the cage czar marched on, a man who behaved like an island, even though it didn’t look as if he had found one.

He was a character out of an old movie, Apocalypse Now, a film loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, a novel with a title that sums up the times. White is a composite, two characters in one.

He looks like Marlon Brando’s version of Colonel Kurtz, an eccentric and deranged version of a Green Beret officer hidden in the jungle at the end of a Viet Nam river. He often behaves and sounds like Robert Duvall’s version of an Air Cavalry commander who blows away a Viet Nam village with his helicopter gunships, surfs to celebrate and then says:

“I love the smell of napalm in the morning.’’

Translation: The risk of a few more body bags is just the price of doing business. But the potential cost in terms of perception and public health was just too steep for the network.

White was trying to cross a line that not even boxing could. Boxing, never a role model, has done business with notorious dictators and regimes.

There was George Foreman-versus-Muhammad Ali in 1974 in then Zaire in a deal with despot Mobutu Sese Seko.

In 1975, there was the third Ali-Joe Frazier fight in Manila in a deal Don King negotiated with Ferdinand Marcos.

Last October, Eddie Hearn took the Anthony Joshua-Andy Ruiz Jr. rematch to Saudi Arabia in a deal arranged by a monarchy seeking to distract from its history of repression. The bout was called part of the Kingdom’s “sports wash” policy.

Nothing new about tyrants and thugs in boxing. They are a known risk. Caveat emptor. For now, however, coronavirus is a different kind of risk. A very different kind of tyranny. Only a fool messes around with Mother Nature. She never taps out.

But White, perhaps like his friend President Donald Trump, didn’t appear to have much respect for nature. Trump, an ex-boxing promoter and current promoter of controversial hydroxychloroquine, had been as serious about coronavirus as he has been about climate change.

Trump’s attitude appears to have to have been altered, perhaps by experts or scientific data or just the simple fact that his soul mate, British Premier Boris Johnson, spent a few days in intensive care.

But the stubborn White tried to move forward anyway, with a pay-per-view show on April 18 at the Tachi Palace Casino Resort near Fresno. White didn’t plan the move because Tribal land is somehow immune.

It’s not.

On the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona and western New Mexico, there were 384 infections, according to reports late Thursday. A reservation-wide curfew was ordered through Easter weekend, April 10-April 13.

The reason White wanted to move onto Native-American real estate is all about jurisdiction, jurisdiction, jurisdiction. It’s not subject to state law. There’s an ongoing ban of boxing and mixed-martial arts throughout California. But that doesn’t apply to Tribal land.

White’s attempted move to property outside traditional regulation isn’t new. It happened in June 2007. Tommy Morrison, a former heavyweight champion, made his MMA debut at the Yavapai-Apache Nation in a hillside arena on the east side of the freeway from Phoenix to Flagstaff, AZ.

Morrison was found to be HIV-positive in 1996. A decade later, however, he insisted he was HIV-free, even amid questions about the validity of the blood tests he underwent.

On Apache land, he was not subject to testing. Before the bout, Morrison’s former agent Randy Lang told me, then a sportswriter for The Arizona Republic, that Morrison had tested positive for HIV as late as January 2007.

But the bout went on anyway, including rule changes. Morrison was allowed to wear shoes. His opponent, John Stover, a Native American from South Dakota, was not allowed to strike with his knees or feet. Morrison won, breaking Stover’s nose within two minutes.

Morrison left the ring, still insisting he was HIV-free.

Nearly 69 months later – Sept. 1, 2013 – Morrison, 44, was dead, just weeks after Morrison’s mom told ESPN that her son had full-blown AIDS.

“He’s too far gone,” she said. “He’s in the end stages. That’s it.”

It’s a sad story. It’s an important one to remember. Important not to repeat, too. Not on Native-American land. Not on an island. Not here. Not anywhere.  And, above all, not now.

By Norm Frauenheim-

There’s not much to do while trying to honor a stay-at-home order. There’s music. There’s yard-work. There’s listening to pundits and Trump’s lies and wondering if ear plugs would help. They’re probably not much protection from the virus, but maybe they’ll silence the misinformation and the idiocy.

Mostly, there’s just counting the cancellations. Wednesday, it was Wimbledon. Thursday, it was an extension of the California State Athletic Commission’s cancellation of boxing through the end of May.

None of it is a surprise anymore. It’s just another couple of depressing drumbeats in the funeral-like march of news about escalating deaths and a rising rate of infection. It’s beginning to sound as if everybody will be wearing masks before long. Nobody seems to know if they’ll stop the virus. But they will hide the frowns.

What’s next? Who knows? Nobody seems to know. As a sportswriter, you live a life measured by seasons and events. Opening Day, Opening Ceremonies, opening tip, opening bell. Now, they’re all gone, postponed once and then twice. After a while, you wonder what they’ll look like when and if the virus subsides.

It’ll be different. Best guess is that the days of big money — or to use today’s operative term – have been postponed for the foreseeable future. Who’s working? Disposable income? How about any income at all?

For boxing, that’s especially problematic. Who’s going to have money for streaming services, much less pay-per-view? Not many, at least not for a while. Meanwhile, there are the fighters themselves. If they don’t fight, they don’t get paid. Journeymen, boxing’s vital working class, will move on to something where there is a paycheck.      

“There’s always a fallout from this kind of stuff, you know, that changes the landscape of a business or the sport,” UK promoter Eddie Hearn told iFL TV this week.

Hearn is trying to foresee something positive. The shutdown, he believes or perhaps hopes, will force promoters and fighters to re-think how they do business. Above all, it’s an urgent reminder of just how vulnerable any opportunity is. Don’t waste it.

“I think how this will change is you’ll see fighters being moved into bigger fights quicker,’’ Hearn said. “I think that people will realize sometimes things aren’t guaranteed, nothing is given, and rather than having a warm-up fight or having this one first or this little one, I think people will be looking to have bigger fights.”

Maybe.

But they’ll have to be willing to fight for less, maybe a lot less, than the staggering purses before coronavirus. Post COVID-19, the world figures to be a very different place.

“It’s gonna be difficult,” Hearn said. “You know, when you come back – whether it’s June, whether it’s July – don’t just expect the whole world to go back to normal.’’

Best guess?

Expect a lot less.

By Norm Frauenheim-

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — No Opening Day. No Opening Ceremony. No opening bell. I’m almost afraid to open the door. Any door.

It’s hard to know exactly what to do in a world that has suddenly gone dark, locked down and left without much of anything to do other than wait — pray — for the coronavirus pandemic to subside.

I’m bunkered down these days in Flagstaff, an Arizona mountain town a couple of hours north of Phoenix. The Grand Canyon’s south rim is about 60-miles away. It felt like a place to go, perhaps an escape from the daily onslaught of news about something often called COVID-19, suddenly an ominous acronym if there ever was one.

But there’s really no escape. The masks are here, a symbol of the fear that has gripped almost every community, big or small. I saw those masks on a trail, a popular two-mile loop between the snow-capped peaks that soar above Flagstaff’s historic downtown.

It’s a place to walk. It’s also a place to run, another trail that has long attracted Olympic medalists to train at altitude. They’re still here, running for perhaps the same reason I’m walking. We’re trying to get away from the bad news that is always there and always with no apparent end in sight.

Despite the natural beauty, I felt bad for them. Just a couple of weeks ago, they were running for a reason. They were running for a gold-medal finish. But, for now, that’s gone, pulled away by this week’s announcement that the Tokyo Olympics have been postponed until 2021. It’s the right thing to do. Really, it’s the only thing to do. It’s even what they wanted.

It’s what the USA Track and Field asked for in a statement Saturday, the day after USA Swimming asked for a postponement. Some of the world’s best swimmers also train here, indoors at a state-of-the-art Olympic-sized pool at Northern Arizona University. Take a Deep Breath, it says on wall at the pool. You’re at 7,000 feet.

But, truth is, the wind has been knocked out of them. The pool is closed. It looks as though Senator Rand Paul, a former competitive swimmer at Baylor, might have been the last person to get in a few laps. He was spotted in the Senate pool on the day he learned he had tested positive. Now, the Senator has got coronavirus to go along with ignorance. Maybe, the virus subsides in quarantine. But there’s no cure for the ignorance.

Sorry, for the angry aside. But there’s a void. Anger fills it these days. Paul is in the pool and the rest of us are swimming in lies from the White House. About a month and more than a thousand American deaths ago, we were told that the virus was under control. We were told that it would vanish like a miracle.

Bob Arum once told the media: “Yesterday I was lying, today I’m telling you the truth.’’    

The President, the Ex-Promoter-In-Chief, acts out that line, from day-to-day-to-damning day, in those press briefings. Too many of those – the lies, not the briefings – sent me out on to the trail like Forrest Gump. At least, I thought about Gump’s line:

“That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So, I ran to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I’d run to the end of town. And when I got there, I thought maybe I’d just run across Greenbow County. And I figured, since I run this far, maybe I’d just run across the great state of Alabama. And that’s what I did. I ran clear across Alabama. For no particular reason I just kept on going. I ran clear to the ocean. And when I got there, I figured, since I’d gone this far, I might as well turn around, just keep on going. When I got to another ocean, I figured, since I’d gone this far, I might as well just turn back, keep right on going.’’

That’s kind of what those world-class runners are doing on that trail. They don’t know what else to do. Neither do I.

No telling when I’ll hear another opening bell. I thought it might be July 18. That’s when the third Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder was supposed to happen. But now that’s been shelved, Arum told ESPN. The Athletic reports that the new date is Oct. 3. Don’t be surprised if that date changes a few more times. It’s just hard to believe much of anything.

But there is that trail, a place high in the mountains and a place to keep right on going.

By Norm Frauenheim-

March Madness has taken on a new meaning. More like Sadness.

There’s been a crazy whirlwind of postponements, then cancellations. College basketball fans were told to stay away and watch the NCCA Tournament on TV. Then, they were just told to forget about it.

There’s no fast break these days, unless you’re heading to quarantine or trying to buy a roll of toilet paper. Don’t get trampled. The projected numbers from coronavirus are multiplying at a scary rate. Neighbors, at least I think that’s who they are, are wearing surgical masks.

Wash hands, don’t shake them. Practice social distancing, which apparently is done in a lot of ways. At first, I thought I had been doing that all my life. Hey, I’m still single. But then I learned. Stay six feet away from the person in front of you. Stay at home. Actually, that’s getting to be easy. There’s nowhere else to go, not even out to dinner.

The wild, wild world of sports has just gone weird. Very weird. That’s just another way of saying life’s toy department is not immune. Maybe, it never has been. America boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Athletes were killed by terrorists at the 1972 Munich Games. Baseball players, basketball players and football players have all walked picket lines.

But this feels different. It’s dark. Empty. It’s no game and there’s really no way to know when one will be back, at least not one burdened by the fear surrounding virtually everything in the here-and-now.

There’s an idea that sports can go on without fans in the seats.

That’s what boxing had planned to do a week ago for the Shakur Stevenson-Miguel Marriaga fight, a featherweight title bout at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theatre in New York. Fans would have been banned. The Top Rank-promoted fight would have been seen only on ESPN. Essentially, it would have been a studio show.

For years, people have predicted that’s exactly where sports are headed anyway. Amid today’s prohibitive ticket prices, why not watch at home where a six-pack is about half-the-price of one beer?

The scary part is that I’m not sure anybody will be able to afford a beer, much less a ticket, after a virus that has suddenly crippled the way we do business. Streets, restaurants and bars today are as empty as those seats would have been for Stevenson-Marriaga.  

Top Rank eventually did what the NCAA did with the basketball tournament, an annual rite of spring. Actually, it didn’t have much choice. The New York State Athletic Commission pulled the plug hours after Top Rank had announced the show would go on, empty seats and all. Since then, the dominoes have been falling, one cancellation after another. Promoters are calling them postponements, but don’t ask them for a date.

They don’t know.

Nobody knows.

Coronavirus has a mind of its own.   

Besides, games in empty arenas would still mean sweating players, referees and everybody else needed to keep the lights on and the doors open.

Pandemic, fandemic. It doesn’t discriminate. Players, coaches and ball-boys are as vulnerable as anybody else, including cut men, bucket guys and the ex-promoter currently in the White House. Only the ball and gloves are immune. Basketball games and fight cards are just another way of spreading the virus.

Why risk it? Boxing is interesting because of its unshakable streak of defiance. But sparring with the coronavirus threat wouldn’t be defiant. Just dumb. Wait for another day. Big fights get postponed all the time by injuries sustained in training.

A move into the studio would have been a move to save the bottom line. But a game or a fight card without fans only sounds desperate. It’s a little bit like that old line about a tree in the forest. If it falls and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Does it matter? Says here, it doesn’t. It wouldn’t.

If sporting events without fans in the seats are an example of “social distancing,’’ then we’ve gone too far. People enter the arena to do some “social connecting.’’ Eliminate them and you eliminate the sport. Top Rank and the New York commission decided to fight on another day. There will be one. It was the right thing to do. The only thing.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Deontay Wilder is a predictable target on sociopath media these days. Anybody, which means just about everybody, with a keyboard and an insult is piling on in the wake of his one-sided loss to Tyson Fury.

Everybody, that is, but Fury.

The fundamental goodness in Fury has been evident throughout interviews this week in the UK. Fury beat him up. Forced his corner to surrender in the seventh round. Within the ropes, he showed no mercy. Outside of them, he has shown empathy for a fellow fighter struggling to come to terms with his first defeat.

In part, perhaps, that’s because Fury has already been trashed by the virtual vigilantes, who have buried Wilder beneath their malice for blaming his loss on the collection of nuts, bolts and batteries that were part of his armored costume. The 40-pound get-up weakened him in his walk to the ring, Wilder said before video surfaced of him saying he trained while wearing a 45-pound weighted vest.

There’s been no bunker deep enough, no armored suit protective enough, to shield him from what has followed.

Fury has been there, a target of public shaming, during dark days of drinking, drugging, eating and agonizing in the aftermath of his 2015 upset of Wladimir Klitschko.

He was the heavyweight champ with heavyweight mental issues, an accident in the making and always in the headlines. He was stripped of his titles and stripped of his sanity. But he made it back, came back with a unique understanding of the kind of adversity now facing Wilder.

Fury came into the ring to Patsy Cline’s country classic, Crazy. Fury knows something about crazy.

“I can understand where he’s coming from,” Fury told ITV’s This Morning. “In every fighter’s mind, there’s got to be a reason why they’ve lost. It can never be a simple fact (of) I wasn’t good enough on the night and lost to the better guy. It’s always got to be: ‘The camp was wrong. It was the trainer’s fault. It was my suit, it was my toe.’

“With me, if I’m injured or whatever the problem is, it’s like, ‘OK, the performance wasn’t great. But I’m going to move on and crack on.’ ‘’

The question is whether Wilder will be able to move on. He’s already exercised a contract clause for a third fight, tentatively set for July 18 at Las Vegas MGM Grand, site of the last bout. With an interim fight, Wilder might be able to restore some confidence, which figures to be shaky after the beatdown he suffered on Feb. 22.

But business is business, and Fury promises to subject him to another business-like beating.

 “I beat him the first time,” said Fury, who fought Wilder to a controversial draw on Dec. 1, 2018 in their first meeting. “I beat him the second time. I’ll surely beat him the third time.’’

Hard to argue with that.

However, it’s also clear that Fury and Wilder like each other. Throughout all the trash-talking exchanges at news conferences before the rematch, there were moments when that was evident. You could see it in their eyes and their body language. After shoving each other at the final newser, there was a break. They smiled, an acknowledgement that those were friendly shoves.

Fury was also careful not to spark any racial controversy. Race has always been part of boxing. After all, it’s the sport the created The Great White Hope. Wilder dropped some racial hints. February was Black History Month. Wilder said he wanted to turn Fury into a Black History Month trivia question.

But Fury wouldn’t go there.

“This is not a racial war,’’ Fury said when asked about Wilder’s comment a couple of days before opening bell.

No, it was not.

Is not.

It simply was about two men who happen to like each other despite the war that awaited them.

And still awaits them.

“The one thing I will say about Deontay Wilder is he’s a very worthy opponent, and he’s a very dangerous opponent,” Fury said. “He has that eraser power of 43 knockouts, only the one defeat, and you can never write a guy off like that. It’s always one punch away from disaster with Deontay.

“Like he famously says, ‘They have to be correct for 36 minutes, I have to be correct for one second.’

“And that’s so true.”

Nice to hear something so genuinely true, too.Attachments area

By Norm Frauenheim-

Mikey Garcia has been called stubborn more than once. It’s a multi-edged adjective. There’s the good stubborn, as in the tenacious Garcia. There’s the bad stubborn, as in the obstinate Garcia.

Apply the good or the bad, it doesn’t make much difference. Garcia proceeds on his terms and always with his own idea of what he wants from an accomplished career that already includes titles at featherweight, junior-lightweight, lightweight and junior-welterweight.

That stubborn streak has taken him back to the city and the weight he was at a year ago in a disappointing loss to Errol Spence Jr. at AT&T Stadium, the Dallas Cowboys home field.

Garcia (39-1, 30 KOs) will be nearby in Frisco at The Ford Center against Jessie Vargas (29-2-2, 11 KOs) Saturday night on DAZN. He says he has something to prove, perhaps as much to himself as to his fans.

“I’m here to do one thing,’’ he said at a news conference this week. “I’m here to take over. I’m here to show that there’s a lot more to Mikey Garcia. I’m here to show all my skills, here to remind everyone that I can be a serious welterweight contender.’’

He last time we saw Garcia in the ring, he looked like a fighter who had moved too far up the scale. He looked sluggish. Out of sorts. It was forgettable and perhaps it could have been forgotten altogether by a fight at a lighter weight that would showcase, instead of suffocate, a disciplined skillset that had put Garcia among the top five in the pound-for-pound debate. The talk was that Garcia would be best-served back at 140 pounds, perhaps in a big-money bout against Manny Pacquiao.

But Garcia hasn’t forgotten the performance against Spence. Or the talk. Time is one way to forget. But Garcia wants to knock out the memory with a stoppage of the bigger Vargas. Vargas hasn’t fought in nearly a year since his stoppage of Humberto Soto last April in Los Angeles. But Garcia hasn’t exactly been busy either. He hasn’t fought since Spence dominated him in every way in scoring a unanimous decision on March 16.

Vargas’ superior size and world-class resume at 147 pounds are factors that could remind Garcia of what happened to him a year ago.

“He has everything, all of things that people say about what I shouldn’t be doing and fighters I shouldn’t be fighting,’’ Garcia said. “That motivates me.’’

Motivates him to be as stubborn as ever.

By Norm Frauenheim-

LAS VEGAS – There been a lot of talk about what — who — awaits the Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury winner of a long-anticipated heavyweight rematch Saturday at the MGM Grand.

The winner moves on to a bigger fight and a bigger challenge against Anthony Joshua, who holds most of the heavyweight belts. At least, that the presumptive plan.

But Fury promoter Bob Arum thinks the challenge is overrated.

Joshua is not among the elite, Arum said in a reference to Andy Ruiz Jr.’s stunning stoppage of Joshua on June 1 at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

“Any fighter that loses, not only loses, but gets knocked out by Andy Ruiz, who at best is a slightly above-average heavyweight, is not an elite fighter. Period,” Arum told a few reporters this week.

Arum also was not impressed with Joshua in a rematch victory over Ruiz on Dec. 7 in Saudi Arabia. Joshua decision was celebrated by fans and media, who called it vindication for the UK heavyweight.

“Secondly, when Andy Ruiz goes into the second fight obese – obese, not even really having trained – and Joshua doesn’t knock the guy out and destroy him, instead dances around for 12 rounds, he is not an elite fighter,” said Arum, who once promoted Ruiz.

Joshua scored a one-sided decision — winning 10 rounds on one scorecard and 11 rounds on each other two – with a cautious strategy.

Arum said Joshua fought scared.

“I think Joshua will fight all the rest of his fights in his career scared,” Arum said. “And you know what happens to scared fighters.”

If Fury wins and there’s no immediate rematch with Wilder, negotiations with Joshua promoter Eddie Hearn could get scary, too.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Phoenix junior-featherweight Carlos Castro faces a key step in his pursuit of a shot at world title Friday night at Celebrity Theatre.

Castro (24-0, 10 KOs) faces Jesus Estrella Ruiz (41-8-5) for a bout that could win him a mandatory shot at the World Boxing Council’s version of the 122-pound belt.

If not a mandatory, a victory over Ruiz would put him in line for an elimination bout for the mandatory slot, according to Robert Vargas of Iron Boy Promotions. Castro is currently ranked No. 3 by the WBC. Unbeaten Mexican Rey Vargas (34-0, 22 KOs) holds the WBC belt.

Castro, 24, has been pursuing a major title ever since he signed with top Rank a couple of years ago. Vargas said Castro was willing to fight emerging star Emanuel Navarrete (30-1, 26 KOs), the World Boxing Organization champion, on the card featuring the Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury heavyweight rematch Saturday night at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

However, Top Rank decided to match Navarrete against Filipino Jeo Satisima ((19-2, 16 KOs) instead.

In Ruiz, Castro faces a fighter with power. He’s from Nogales on the Mexican side of the border with Arizona. He has trained and sparred with former featherweight champion Oscar Valdez Jr, also of Nogales.

Doors open at Celebrity at 5 p.m. (MST).

By Norm Frauenheim-

Tyson Fury moves from profane to prophetic in interviews in much the same way he switches from orthodox to southpaw in the ring. It’s subtle, almost seamless, which makes it hard to detect. It also makes him dangerous.

He’s a man with many sides. He’s fighter with many styles. The idea is to keep everybody guessing, especially Deontay Wilder, who believes his singular power will be enough to knock down and knock out whatever version of Fury shows up from round to round in their long-awaited rematch Feb. 22 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

“I’m ready for war, one round or twelve,’’ Fury said during an international conference call this week.

Translation: It might — emphasis on might – mean that Fury is prepared for any eventuality in what many say is an extension of the 12-round fight than ended in a draw 14 months ago at Los Angeles’ Staples Center. This heavyweight rivalry could end in the 13th round or the 24^th round. But Fury is confident it will end in his favor. He’s also confident it will end in a knockout.

He likes his chances, in large part because he simply has more ways to fight than Wilder does. Fury has options; Wilder has only one.

“I learned that he can be hit quite regularly,’’ Fury said. “He’s one-dimensional, a one-trick pony, and on Feb. 22 I’m going to prove that.’’

Wilder’s dimension is in the power he possesses in a right hand that is delivered with leverage and astonishing speed. Wilder’s record speaks for itself. Forty-one stoppages in 43 fights is a formula to fear. But Fury isn’t afraid, in part because he has done something as singular as Wilder’s right hand. He’s the only one who got up from it, not once, but twice – first in the ninth round and again in an incredible twelfth.

“I felt the power,’’ Fury says. “Ain’t so bad, ain’t so bad.’’

Ain’t so good, perhaps for Wilder, who might be left wondering whether he has run into the one fighter resilient enough to survive boxing’s version of a weapon of mass destruction. If doesn’t work this time, what will?

“It’s not about getting knocked down,’’ Fury said. “It’s about what happens when you get up.’’ 

There’s controversy about whether the count from referee Jack Reiss was too long in the dramatic final round on Dec.1, 2018. Nevertheless, Fury got up in time to resume what was yet to be decided. He got up in time to work his body into even better condition. This time, there was no crash diet, no battle to a lose a reported 100 pounds over long year.  He looks to be in condition.

“You’re going to see the best Tyson Fury that’s ever been,’’ he said, promising still another version of a fighter who never quits re-inventing himself into someone Wilder never expected.

By Norm Frauenheim-

The before-and-after photos are astonishing. The physical transformation of Tyson Fury continues. A couple of years ago, he made Andy Ruiz Jr. look skinny.

Now, he might be making Deontay Wilder nervous.

Come to think of it, that might be the reason for the photo of Fury looking fit and fight-ready for the heavyweight rematch Feb. 22 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand. In an Instagram post this week, Fury poses with arms crossed and eyes focused directly into the camera and straight into Wilder’s eyes. 

It’s a pose intended for an audience of one.

A month ago, Fury predicted he would knock out Wilder in two rounds. Wilder laughed. So, too, did the media. Why would Fury even think about trying to counter Wilder’s singular power with power he has yet to deliver?

Tyson’s clever skillset had him ahead through eight rounds of their first bout in December 2018 at Los Angeles Staples Center. Then, he got knocked down, first in the ninth round and again in the twelfth. It ended in a controversial draw. Without the knockdowns, it’s a one-sided decision for Fury. So why-oh-why wouldn’t he just make a simple adjustment: Stay away for the full 12 rounds in the sequel.

Conventional wisdom dictates that’s what he – in fact — will do. But the Instagram pose is there, suggesting that Fury has done the work he needs to have any chance at a stoppage in any round, much less the second.

Fury says he is at his optimum weight now. He’s at 270 pounds, which he says will be his weight at opening bell. He was at 256 ½ in the first fight. Thirteen-and-half more pounds suggest he’s attempting to put some additional force behind his punches. He jumped from trainer Ben Davison to SugarHill Steward, a Kronk student of the late Emanuel Steward’s power-punching philosophy. The idea, Fury said, is to augment whatever power he might possess with technique, practice-practice-practice and a few more pounds.

Will it work? Probably not. In big fights – and this rematch is as big as it gets – fighters become who they have always been. Fury, who calls himself a student of the game, knows that. In the first couple of rounds, however, he might do something unexpected in an early attempt to confuse Wilder.

He’s doing that now. Fury-being-Fury means lots of talk, head fakes and moves calculated to distract, enrage and entertain.

He says he’ll win within two. He says he toughens up his hands by dipping them in gasoline every day. He’s on fire. Maybe, Wilder is listening, but don’t expect him to call 911.

Fury sticks out his tongue. He rolls his eyes in clownish disbelief. He’s joking. Maybe, Wilder is laughing.

This week, Fury poses. It’s a good photo-op, another app in the psychological game. Maybe, Wilder is watching. But who’s winning? That’s a maybe, too, despite the promises, photos, posts, predictions, pounds and poses.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Tyson Fury calls himself a boxing historian, which means more than a basic understanding of what it is to be the lineal heavyweight champion. Mostly, it means he understands deception.

He practices the art and even drops occasional references to Sun Tzu, an ancient philosopher quoted by Generals, cornermen, West Point professors and lineal heavyweight champs. Deontay Wilder calls Fury a con man and maybe he is. But a fighter without a good con enters the ring without a fundamental weapon. No feint, no chance.

“All warfare is based on deception,’’ Tzu said in his classic, The Art of War.

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak,’’ he also wrote.

Those are quotes to remember as Fury’s rematch with Wilder approaches on Feb. 22 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand in a Fox/ESPN pay-per-view bout.

Between sticking out his tongue and mocking Wilder with dancing eyes, Fury talks. And talks. It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s fake, what’s true and what’s feint. But that’s the idea in the buildup, a series of news conferences that set the stage for the head games that precede any opening bell.

Fury is trying to confuse Wilder, who knocked him down twice with the most feared right hand in at least a generation. Wilder says there’s no eluding his power. Few have. His record includes an astonishing 41 stoppages in 43 fights. But the record also includes the draw with Fury Dec. 1, 2018 in Los Angeles.  In the twelfth round, Fury got up from the punch that landed with the concussive force that has finished virtually everyone else. But Fury got up, a singular answer to Wilder’s singular power.

Why Fury and nobody else? It’s a question Fury has been asking Wilder, again and again, in the face-to-face ritual for the cameras. Ask often enough, and maybe Fury plants a seed of a doubt, a crack in Wilder’s faith in his right hand.  Wilder shouts BOMB SQUAD and laughs at Fury, saying the right will keep Fury on the canvas this time. Maybe, it will. Maybe, there’s no way to avoid it. But Fury will continue to remind Wider that his resurrection on Dec. 1 is a reason to wonder whether that right is as all-powerful as he thinks. It’s a psychological feint from Fury, straight out of that Sun Tzu playbook: Appear strong when you are weak.

There’s also this: Fury promises to turn the tables on Wilder. He says he will knock him out in two rounds. He says he’s developing his own right hand in training with Emanuel Steward’s namesake and mentor, SugarHill Steward, of the Kronk school of power. Fury talks about a right he’ll deliver with Tommy Hearns-like leverage.

Wilder laughs at that one, too. How could he not? Conventional wisdom seems to dictate that Fury relies on his superior boxing skill to stay away from the right throughout 12 rounds. If he had done that in the first fight, there would have been no controversy. He would have won a clear-cut decision.

But Fury has never been conventional. Perhaps, he’s trying to confuse Wilder with a wild prediction. But think again. Fury goes into the fight with scar tissue from a cut above the right eye that required 47 stitches after a bloody decision over Otto Wallin on Sept. 14.

In the first of two news conferences in Los Angeles, he told www.boxingjunkie.com that he wouldn’t risk a further cut in training.

“If it ruptures, it’ll happen in the fight,’’ he said.

Translation: He might have to win an early stoppage. Nobody can be certain that the scar tissue can withstand 12 rounds. Repeated blows, even glancing ones, could result in a fight-ending rupture. Wilder believes that the fight with Wallin would have been stopped if not for the prospect of the February rematch.

Wilder has also looked into Fury’s face and sees what everybody else does. The scar is evident, a target if there ever was one. Wilder has joked that he intends to see how good Fury’s plastic surgeon is. It’s a signal he’ll go after the eye, early and often.

Fury seems to be inviting him to do exactly that. It’s as if he is urging Wilder to step inside in a head-long assault to bloody up a healing wound. Then and there, Fury might deliver his own right-handed power. The lure is that scar, also straight out of the Sun Tzu playbook.

“Hold out baits to entice the enemy,’’ he wrote. “Feign disorder, and crush him.’

Timeless advice from an ancient philosopher who could have been a corner man in any era.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Andy Ruiz Jr., who needs as many friends as he can find, fired the best one he had.

He fired Manny Robles.

The move isn’t exactly a surprise. It didn’t even surprise Robles. Let’s just say it was dumb, double-down dumb.

Ruiz, the first heavyweight champion of Mexican descent, has followed up his embarrassing rematch loss to Anthony Joshua with a public-relations debacle hard to explain and harder to excuse. A People’s Champ lost more than a title. He lost the people.

Those people will be harder to win back than titles. There are plenty of belts, even a few that might fit Ruiz’ expandable waistband. But loyalty, once squandered, is hard to regain. Ruiz grew up in a community where loyalty is a currency valued more than money. In Loyalty We Trust. You hear it from Canelo Alvarez in his criticism of Oscar De La Hoya.

Canelo delivered a stinging rip of De La Hoya in an interview with The Athletic before his Nov. 2 stoppage of Sergey Kovalev. He called him disloyal, yet he stays with De La Hoya, loyal to his commitment to the Golden Boy promoter. He stays with his original trainer and manager, Eddy and Chepo Reynoso. He has been with them and evolved with them from the beginning and throughout criticism of their work in the wake of a loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in September 2013.

Canelo is the reigning example of what to do.

Ruiz is the sad face of what not to do.

His fans would have forgiven him for his one-sided decision loss to Joshua in a rematch of Ruiz’ Rocky-like upset in June at New York’s Madison Square Garden. They would have even forgiven him for partying more than training for the rematch. Who wouldn’t? They would have partied like a lottery winner, too. They identified with him, each and every flabby ounce. But firing his trainer is unforgivable.

Robles is a convenient fall guy for what happened in Saudi Arabia. He got thrown under that proverbial bus, which happens to be something else fans understand. They’ve been there, tossed aside and into the expendable exhaust.

“It is what it is, I don’t know what to tell you,’’ Robles told ESPN, which broke the story.  “It’s not the first time it’s happened to me. I’m sure it’s not the first time it’s happened to other coaches.

“It happens time and time again. We always end up getting the short end of the stick. But it is what it is, you keep moving forward.”

Robles knows all about picking himself up. He did it after Oscar Valdez Jr. left him for Eddy Reynoso in August 2018. But the circumstances were different. Valdez moved on, still unbeaten and still a featherweight champion. He wasn’t coming off a loss and looking for a scapegoat.

Robles never expressed any anger at Valdez. Instead, he thanked Valdez. He called him friend and said he would always be a Valdez’ fan.

The split with Ruiz is different, both in proportion and style. Ruiz’ upset of Joshua and his subsequent loss were magnified, made bigger by untold multiples by a media captivated by an epic moment on a huge stage. In June, was the everyman, fat and fantastic all at once on an improbable night in New York. In Saudi Arabia, he was just a fat fool.

But Robles thanked him, too.

“Absolutely, look I’ve got to tell you I’m absolutely grateful and blessed to have been able to experience everything that I was able to experience in 2019,” Robles told ESPN. “I mean, we made history, and I have to be thankful for that. I have to be thankful to Andy and his dad for giving me the opportunity to be part of something special, to have made history — for him to become the first Mexican heavyweight champion of the world.’’

Thanks, Manny Robles, a good guy who got a raw deal.

By Norm Frauenheim-

The hyperbole is already underway. Insults, expletives and exaggerations were delivered, exchanged and countered this week in downtown Los Angeles, just across the street from where Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury fought to a controversial draw more than 13 months ago at Staples Center.

More words, a lot more, are inevitable throughout the five-plus weeks before the rematch on Feb. 22 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand. It’s show biz, entertaining and redundant all at once.

But it’s also boxing, unpredictable on any scale but never more so than at heavyweight. That unpredictability, of course, is a double-edged dynamic. Dangerous and dramatic. It can end faster than an accident, a violent collision created more by power than skill.

The Fury-Wilder sequel figures to get more interesting as the opening bell gets closer, mostly because both like the bully pulpit.

Wilder is over-the-top noisy. Bomb Squad, he screams at a window-rattling volume.

Fury is quick-witted. Jokes are as much a part of the Fury skillset as the jab.

Both are profane.

If you’re scoring the early rounds of press conferences, these two are exactly where they were after 12 rounds at Staples. It’s a draw, Wilder scoring with energy and Fury scoring with stinging counters. From this corner, the guess is that the exchange will continue without either getting much of a psychological edge before the first punch.

A fight of many words and promotional angles, however, might hang on a thread. Forty-seven of them, to be exact. That’s how many surgical threads Fury needed to sew up a wound above Fury’s right eye after Otto Wallin cut him during a Fury victory by decision on Sept. 14 at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena.

The stitches are gone, removed just a few weeks after the bloody bout. But a question remains about whether the wound has healed enough to withstand a punch, or punches, delivered with Wilder’s kind of power.

The scar is evident.

For Wilder, it’s a target.

For Fury, it’s a risk.

Fury conceded the risk when asked about the scar this week at LA Live. He said he would be careful not to rupture it in sparring at his Las Vegas’ training camp.

“If I’m going to get cut, it’s going to be in the fight,’’ Fury said.

He was also asked how it felt when a punch landed on the scar. Fury made it sound as though he would not take any test blows on the scarred tissue.

“I can’t risk it,’’ he said.

Neither Fury nor Wilder wants a postponement. Nobody does, especially the promoters and networks, ESPN and Fox, which have joined together in rare cooperation for a pay-per-view telecast expected to do big business.

For Wilder, news of Fury’s caution must be welcome. Wilder is also happy that the Sept. 14 fight wasn’t stopped because of blood that poured down the right side of Fury’s face and into his eye. In just about any other fight, Wilder believes it would have been stopped. But the prospect of a rich rematch made this one different. The stakes were big enough, Wilder said, to let it go on.

It went on — and on – leaving Wilder with an opportunity to finish the bloody job. Maybe, that’s why he’s so confident. In a fight full of unpredictable factors, one thing is certain: Wilder won’t exercise Fury’s caution. He’ll go after that scar, targeting it early and often, in a simple tactic that might say it all.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Top Rank’s roster got deeper and its reach grew farther with Thursday’s surprising announcement that it had signed Josh Taylor, the Scottish junior-welterweight whose imminent stardom was evident in his majority decision over Regis Prograis for two of the 140-pound belts in late October.

It was the second signing of worldwide significance for Top Rank, which signed bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue on the same day in November when he beat Nonito Donaire in a Fight of the Year performance.

From Japan to Scotland, the sun never sets on Top Rank’s promotional empire these days.

The top of the pound-for-pound debate provides a pretty good look at a promotional roster that is long on substance and name recognition. Among the top five, the order changes, but three are Top Rank fighters – Terence Crawford, Vasiliy Lomachenko and Inoue.  Canelo Alvarez of Golden Boy and Errol Spence Jr. of PBC complete the elite five.

There’s a chance, a good one, that more Top Rank fighters will begin to climb into pound-for-pound consideration on Top Rank’s ESPN schedule throughout 2020. There’s light-heavyweight Artur Beterbiev, junior-welterweight Jose Ramirez, lightweight Teofimo Lopez, featherweight Shakur Stevenson, junior-featherweight Emanuel Navarrete and now Taylor.

For Taylor, it all depends on how he does against Ramirez. Taylor’s new deal opened the door for a Taylor-Ramirez fight for all of the relevant pieces to the 140-pound puzzle. Look for that one later in year. First, Ramirez has a date against Viktor Postol on Feb. 2 in China.

On several levels, Taylor’s move is intriguing and controversial. It further stoked the fires of an already hot rivalry between Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn of the UK and Top Rank’s Bob Arum. Hearn in early 2020 is to Arum what Don King was to a younger Arum late in the last century. They just don’t like each other.

Arum is not shy about Hearn’s move into the United States. He threw verbal bombs at Hearn for Matchroom’s Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.-Danny Jacobs fight in Phoenix on Dec. 20 before fans threw beer bombs at Chavez when he decided not to continue after five rounds. Less than a month later, Arum moves into Hearn’s backyard and signs Taylor, who is Top Rank’s answer to Matchroom’s signing of Mikey Garcia last month.

The controversial side to Taylor’s move to Top Rank involves Barry McGuigan, who fired off a statement to UK media Thursday, saying Taylor was still under contract to Cyclone Promotions.

Taylor quickly countered with a statement of his own, saying he had ended the deal with Cyclone.

“I terminated my promotional agreement with Cyclone as a result of various breaches of contract including, in particular, breaches relating to a conflict of interest on the part of the promoter,” he said. “That allowed me to search for a new promoter, which I have found in Top Rank. I wanted to part ways amicably and without resorting to court proceedings [and] I thought and hoped the McGuigans would feel the same way given the litigation they are involved in with other fighters.’’

Cyclone Promotions has been in and out of court with Carl Frampton, a former featherweight champion from Belfast who is recovering from hand surgery in hopes of fighting junior-lightweight champion Jamel Herring in May.

The controversy figures to continue. But boxing wouldn’t be what it is without turmoil. On both sides of the ropes, the business is always fighting, yet always resilient enough to recreate itself with bouts worth watching. Taylor-Ramirez is one of them.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Fights we want to see.
Fights we won’t see. It’s that time of the year. Old is supposed to give way to
the new. But boxing is a business that has seen it all, or almost all.  We still haven’t seen Terence
Crawford-versus-Errol Spence Jr. and I have a hunch we won’t see it in 2020
either. Hope springs eternal, but old habits make the world go ‘round.

Bob
Arum, who has seen it all, told The Athletic that boxing is poised for a terrific
year. All the fundamentals are there.

“It’s
going to be off the charts,’’ Arum said.

But
then there was the caveat. The if.

“If,’’
Arum said, “everybody doesn’t bleep it up.’’

Bleep
is a boxing habit. For whatever reason, it won’t stay in the spit bucket. It
always seems to be there just when you begin to think the battered game is
about to get up and off the canvas. Let’s face it, 2019 was forgettable.

Sure,
there were some moments. Canelo won at a fourth weight, winning a
light-heavyweight title in a 10^th-round knockout of Sergey Kovalev.
But did anybody really think that wasn’t going to happen?

It’ll
be a night remembered more for the delay in the opening bell. In a misguided
attempt to boost the DAZN audience, the logistics around a good Las Vegas fight
featuring boxing’s biggest draw waited until a UFC card in New York ended. It
was embarrassing and a sure sign that boxing’s place in the market and the
public imagination had further eroded.

That
slide will continue this year without a serious attempt at breaking out of the
same old bleep. The Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury rematch on Feb. 22 looks as if it
could be a pretty good beginning, a launching pad to what Arum hopes will be an
off-the-charts year. I’d settle for a year that puts 2019 in the rear view
mirror.

Here
are a few predictions, all with the caveat in mind and the tongue in cheek.

• Wilder knocks out Fury. Fury, already a
  betting favorite, promises that Wilder won’t touch him. But the real question
  is this: Can Fury hurt Wilder? Fury is clever, yet he lacks power. Wilder lacks
  skill, but he is tough. He can withstand punishment. The longer the fight, the
  more likely it is that Wilder’s lethal right lands. This time, Fury doesn’t get
  up.
• Canelo, who gave up his light-heavyweight
  belt, fights Gennadiy Golovkin for a third time. DAZN’s investment mandates the
  bout. Canelo agrees, knowing it will generate significant income. There’s no
  debate about the result this time. Canelo wins a dominant decision.
• Mikey Garcia is again reminded of why there
  are weight classes. Garcia faces welterweight Jessie Vargas on Feb. 28, nearly
  a year after Spence easily beat him in a performance that said –round-to-round
  – that Garcia should have stayed at 135. Vargas keeps it close. But Garcia wins
  a narrow decision in a performance that suggests he’s vulnerable. Manny
  Pacquiao sees the fight—and the vulnerability. Pacquiao and Garcia agree to fight
  later in the year.
• Gervonta Davis fights for the second time at 135
  pounds. Misses weight for a second time, too.
• Jose Ramirez blows away Viktor Postol in China
  on Feb. 2 in a junior-welterweight bout. That sets up a unification title fight
  with Josh Taylor in either the UK or Las Vegas. Ramirez shows he can win
  anywhere, unifying the title and then looking to move up the scale to
  welterweight in a fight with Crawford.
• Anthony Joshua talks, talks and talks about
  Wilder-Fury, yet struggles against Kubrat Pulev in a mandatory defense of one
  of his titles in a spring bout. A bout with Wilder gets delayed until early
  2021.
• Emanuel Navarrete defends his
  junior-featherweight title two more times and moves up the scale to 126 pounds.
  But none of the featherweights will fight him. They’re afraid of him.
• Naoya
  Inoue comes back from eye-socket fracture sustained in Fight of the Year
  victory over Nonito Donaire. Inoue re-asserts his pound-for-pound credentials
  and adds another bantamweight belt against either Nordine Oubaali of France or Filipino Johnriel Casimero sometime in
  mid-year in either Los Angeles or Las Vegas.

• Fury fights MMA,
  wrestles, writes another book and gets a television series, The Furys, A Kardashian Look at a Boxing
  Family.

• Floyd Mayweather Jr. says
  he’s coming back. Then says he’s not coming back. Throughout the next year,
  there will be as many rumors about Mayweather-Pacquiao 2 as there are pages in a
  calendar.

• Teofimo Lopez finally
  gets a shot at Vasiliy Lomachenko late in the year. He pulls off a stunner. He
  fights to a controversial draw with Lomachenko, the pound-for-pound No.1 in
  most ratings. But a rematch dictated by the draw never happens. Lomachenko is
  injured in the fight. Then, he decides to move back down the scale to a more
  natural eight, 130 or 126

• Bleep happens. That’s
  the only sure thing in this year or any other year.

By Norm Frauenheim-

PHOENIX – Danny Jacobs is moving up. But not on.

Jacobs will wear his feelings for an absent friend Friday night when he enters the ring for his first fight at a heavier weight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. at Talking Stick Arena. You’ll see them on his robe. You’ll see them on his trunks.

All Day

Patrick Day

Those are the words, inscribed near the top and near  the bottom of a robe that Jacobs had specially made for his first bout since Day died four days after suffering brain trauma during a fight in Chicago on Oct. 12.

“The robe is symbolic of what he meant to me,” Jacobs said when he introduced the robe and trunks he plans to give to Day’s family after the DAZN-streamed bout.

In addition to All Day, Patrick Day, the white robe with blue stitching includes a picture of the middleweight, a Rest in Paradise inscription and the dates, 1992-2019, of a life that ended too early.

For a while, his grief for Day was more than just a symbol. It hurt. It made him wonder.

“Boxing is not the same,’’ Jacobs said when the fight against Chavez Jr. was announced.

Grief lingers. Perhaps, it always will. But Jacobs is also prepared to re-enter the ring and confront the dangers that killed a friend. In part, the robe helps him remember a fighter and friend who did what he loved despite the risk.

“I know he would want me to not be sad, to be an inspiration in the ring,’’ Jacobs said. “That’s who he was. We sparred numerous times in the ring, spent countless hours together.

“He was a beautiful person, and I know he would want me to keep moving forward.”

Moving forward every day, All Day.

Notes: Jacobs (35-3, 29 KOs) and Chavez (51-3-1, 33 KOs) had agreed to a super-middleweight fight. However, the contract was re-negotiated Thursday morning when Chavez realized he couldn’t make the mandated weight. He was nearly five over the 168-limit at 272.7. Jacobs weighed 167.9.

In the re-done deal, they agreed to a catch-weight, a 173-pound fight. But it cost Chavez plenty. According to multiple sources at the morning weigh-in, Chavez agreed to pay Jacobs $1 million.

According to contracts filed with the Arizona Boxing & MMA Commission, Jacobs and Chavez had equal purses, $2 million each. With the redone deal, however, Jacobs will walk away with $3 million and Chavez Jr. $1 million.  

By Norm Frauenheim-

The pound-for-pound debate is nothing more than an argument. It has no promoter. It offers no belt. Win it, and you won’t get a dime. Just another argument. Terence Crawford knows that, of course.

He’s been the argument, front and center, for a couple of years now. By now, Crawford (35-0, 26 KOs) has heard it all, or at least enough of it to understand that the only fight he can win is the one within the ropes. He’s been doing that and doing it masterfully throughout his career.

That figures to continue with efficiency as seamless as it is deadly Saturday (ESPN) against Lithuanian Egidijus Kavaliauskas (21-0-1, 17 KOs) at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Crawford will win. The argument will resume. Only the argument won’t be decisive. Bet on it.

The argument against Crawford at No. 1 is fair enough. It falls under a time-tested category: Beat The Best To Be The Best. In a balkanized business, however, that’s problematic. The game’s promotional entities are like rival kingdoms. They are divided by their ties to different networks and ego. Crawford is aligned with Top Rank. Shawn Porter, Keith Thurman, Errol Spence and Manny Pacquiao are with PBC. A virtual no-man’s land seems to separate the two.

A deal is not impossible, of course. Example: The Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury rematch on Feb. 22. Wilder is tied to PBC. Fury signed with Top Rank after their dramatic draw a year ago. Business is possible. Top Rank’s Bob Arum is already thinking about Porter as a Crawford possibility in 2020. It’s still not clear what Spence’s plans are since he was thrown from his Ferrari on Oct. 10 in a scary crash in Dallas.

“Spence had that accident and he’s not, I think, going to be around for a while,’’ Arum told Fight Hub TV this week.

So, Arum is considering Porter, who lost a narrow decision to Spence in late September at Los Angeles’ Staples Center.

“The guys who will tell you if a fight will sell are the bookmakers,’’ Arum said. “If they make a fight 50-50, 6-5, 7-5, then you know you got something.

“Now, I think Porter and Crawford will be in that margin, 8-5 or something like that. So that would be interesting. Danny Garcia with Terence Crawford is about 5-1, so that’s not as interesting to me as a Porter fight.”

Porter, tough and smart, would be interesting and might mute some of the Crawford critics. If Crawford beat Porter – and it says here he would – maybe the critics would stop saying that the Omaha welterweight is from the “wrong side of the street.”

It’s a lousy line.

“Deontay Wilder is about to fight Tyson Fury and you never hear about any ‘sides of the street,’ ‘’ Crawford said this week. “It’s just something people say when it comes to Terence Crawford.

“You don’t hear ‘wrong side of the street’ with any other fighter but Terence Crawford. Why do all these other fights get made, but when it’s Terence Crawford, it’s about the ‘wrong side of the street.”

From this corner, Crawford is No. 1 on any side of the pound-for-pound street. His instincts, timing and overall ring IQ are unequalled in today’s generation.

Enough has already been said about his ability to switch from right-handed to southpaw. But it’s still eye-catching. Switch-hitting is often seen as liability. It’s a sign a fighter has no power in either hand. But Crawford has turned a perceived weakness into a strength. Either hand is potent. For Crawford, there’s no wrong side of the street. No wrong hand either.

Only time can beat him. He’s 32. In an interesting radio interview on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show on ESPN, Crawford was asked about Sergey Kovalev. Kovalev, stopped by Canelo Alvarez in early November, is 36.

“Really, I don’t see myself fighting at 36,’’ Crawford said. “I want to retire from boxing before boxing retires me.’’

No argument there.Attachments area

By Norm Frauenheim-

Anthony Joshua promises not to celebrate. That’s just one of the many promises attached to Joshua.

First and foremost, there’s the promise to win Saturday, avenge the stunning defeat to Andy Ruiz Jr. in June. A failure to fulfill that one and you can toss the rest of Joshua’s advertised promise into the spit bucket.

A lot is at stake for him and promoter Eddie Hearn in a rematch aptly dubbed Clash On The Dunes. Lose it, and Joshua’s career won’t be worth much more than a handful of sand. Win it, and he can hit the re-set button on what had been boldly sold and sculpted as a sure thing.

We’ll see.

Doubts at all that’s been said and sold about Joshua will linger no matter what happens in a sequel (DAZN) in a ring near the Saudi oil fields. Joshua had been called a generational athlete. The media bought it. UK fans bought it. Yet, he was beaten in one of the biggest upsets of his generation. The heavyweight hype is gone, leaving him with only a burden of proof.

Has he shaken the psychological aftermath of his June 1 demise?

Will he have enough agility and speed in his feet and a reportedly leaner upper-body to elude and eventually counter Ruiz’ fast hands?

Answers are hard to find, in part because Ruiz’ upset – a seventh-round TKO – was so one-sided. Ruiz (33-1, 22 KOs), a late replacement for Jarrell Miller, was the stand-in. But Joshua (22-1, 21 KOs) fought like the stand-in, hitting the canvas four times.

Who was this guy?

Who is this guy?

A hint to the second question is forthcoming. For Joshua, the task Saturday is to restore some of the advertised identity he lost in New York. He’s right to say there’s no reason to celebrate.

“I was asked this – will it be a special moment?” Joshua said at a news conference Wednesday.  “I said, ‘no,’ because I know I belong there. So, it’s not special.

“I know I belong there. I know what I’m capable of doing. So, when I regain those belts, I’m probably just going keep cool and stay focused, because it’s not a time to celebrate.’’

He went on to say that he always fought as though he was destined to be great.

“When I came into boxing, I didn’t come to take part,’’ he said. “I came to take over.’’

His words are underlined by an unmistakable resolve. But words don’t win fights. Fast hands do. Ruiz can win the rematch with hands that move with a magician’s agility. What Ruiz is missing this time however, is the surprise factor. From this corner, that’s critical.

Ruiz has forever proven that he was underrated. In some ways, he still is. He’s 2-to-1 underdog despite his one-sided stoppage of Joshua in June. But the guess is that Joshua has no illusions about how good Ruiz is, or about how perilous his own future appears to be. Joshua knows about the fast hands. Knows about Ruiz’ resiliency, too.

It would be no surprise to anyone, including Joshua, if Ruiz is the first to hit the canvas. He was in June in a third-round knockdown. But Joshua let him off the hook. Maybe, Joshua got lazy. Or, perhaps, he was just unprepared. But expect Joshua to be vigilant and prepared for that moment when Ruiz does get back up all over again. For the Mexican-American, that will mark the time when the fight is just beginning.

For Joshua, however, it’s a chance to capitalize with superior strength and overall athleticism. That’s when Joshua can begin to punish Ruiz with his power, which is one element that wasn’t oversold. It’s real.

Prediction: Joshua might not be great heavyweight, but he’s good enough to win the rematch with a late-round TKO in a victory that will put him back in line for a day when he can really celebrate. 

By Norm Frauenheim-

BUENOS AIRES – This is a long way from Vegas where history is always just a bulldozer away. Vegas sells itself for all that is supposed to stay there. That’s the cliche anyway.

It’s not true, of course. Nobody much remembers what they did in Vegas. They lose. They go home. They forget.

But there’s no forgetting in Argentina’s capitol city. It’s full of monuments and surrounded by decaying elegance. Streets are named Eva or Evita. Take a left, take a right and there’s a pretty good chance you’ll wind up in Ciudad Evita.

One of the city’s leading tourist stops is a graveyard, Cementerio de la Recoleta. You can say hello to Eva Peron, there, too. Or at least you can say your last respects.

Her tomb is there, next to others, all done in a dizzy array of architectural styles. It’s a well-manicured piece of monumental real estate, the best in the city. Once there, it’s easy to understand why you might want to stay forever.

Among the many decorated graves of Argentine greats, there’s a boxer, Luis Firpo. Forgive the longwinded tour to the point in this column. Then again, nothing happens very quickly in Argentina. Trust me, I’ve stood in several interminably long lines to show my passport at the airport and to exchange currency. (More on this later.)

Firpo’s place in the cemetery is a symbol of what Buenos Aires has been and some ways still is. It was a great fight town. Firpo, one the great heavyweights in the 1920s, is remembered for a wild bout with Jack Dempsey. He knocked Dempsey out of the ring. But Dempsey won, knocking him down seven times.

I mention Firpo, because I was here, passing through Buenos Aires on my way to Patagonia’s glaciers, lakes and mountains on the same day that Deontay Wilder stopped Luis Ortiz last Saturday in a rematch at the MGM Grand. If not for the long-planned trip, I would’ve been in Vegas.

So, I figured that Wilder-Ortiz had to be a must-see event in a city that reveres Firpo and in a country that still celebrates Marcos Maidana and Sergio Martinez. Another heavyweight, Oscar Bonavena, is an Argentina native. He twice took Joe Frazier to the scorecards, losing both. He lost a 15^th-round TKO to Muhammad Ali.

Then, of course, there is Carlos Monzon. They still talk about the all-time middleweight in Buenos Aires. A local television station is planning a documentary series on the fighter, who died in an auto accident in 1995 on a furlough from prison. He was convicted of killing his girlfriend in 1988. Monzon still fascinates.

So, they had to know Wilder, right? No, no, nada. Then, they had to know Ortiz, right? After all, Ortiz is Cuban.  Che Guevara, a Cuban revolutionary, was born in Argentina. He went to school in Buenos Aires. Maybe there was a link, a reason to cheer for Ortiz? No, no, nada.

On the day of my arrival, I only heard some mild interest while standing in line at customs from three Americans, who were a lot more interested in partying in the endless parade of bars up-and-down so many of Buenos Aires’ streets.

So, I searched, first for a sports bar that might show the telecast. But no, no, nada. If there’s a television not showing soccer in Buenos Aires, it’s probably not on. It’s soccer, soccer and more soccer, all day long and all the time.

It was about then that I thought I would invest the $79.99 for the Fox pay-per-view telecast. At the moment I made that decision, the exchange rate, Argentine pesos-for-dollars, was at 56-to-1. Buster Douglas was given a better chance before his monumental upset of Mike Tyson in Tokyo.

Anyway, I’m not sure what the PPV price tag added up to in pesos. Besides, it doesn’t matter. The exchange rate changes, almost by the hour. As I write this, it’s 60-to-1. Whatever the PPV toll in Argentine currency was, it was in the thousands and I forgot to pack a wheelbarrow to carry them around.

Anyway, I headed back to my hotel room, thinking I’d follow the fight on twitter. First, I turned on the television, flipped my way through a few dozen soccer games and, suddenly, there it was Leo Santa Cruz beating Miguel Flores. Wilder-Ortiz was next. But the Fox telecast was carried by rival ESPN for its South American audience.

I didn’t have to shell out a dollar or a single peso. The fight, itself, played out the way I thought it would. Wilder’s right hand lands and it’s over, this time in the seventh round instead of the 10^th. Different timing, same scenario.

Yet, what struck me more than anything were the background shots at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.  Empty seats were everywhere. A crowd of 10,000-plus for heavyweight title fight was announced. Turns out, Wilder isn’t must-see TV in his own country either.

Pick the reason. Maybe, it was a date too close to the Thanksgiving holiday. Or, maybe, neither Wilder nor Ortiz has much appeal to fans. Or maybe the house was over-priced. Pick one, pick all.

But for one night, at least, Vegas and Buenos Aires weren’t as different as I had thought.  

By Norm Frauenheim-

Deontay Wilder’s power, potentially a double-edged weapon, has yet to strike back at him. The theory, perhaps expectation, has long been that it will undo him and his heavyweight reign.

Yet, his right hand, a weapon that is singular in every way, has always been there, a force of nature almost reliable as an incoming tide.

Nobody has ever been able to avoid it, not even Tyson Fury. Fury got up from it in a controversial draw. But not even the clever Fury could elude it.

Now, the many-skilled Luis Ortiz has a second chance Saturday night at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand in a Fox pay-per-view bout.

Ortiz, who learned the trade in Cuba’s exacting amateur ranks, vows to not let it happen again. Ortiz envisions a rematch without a repeat. He foresees only a reversal.

Perhaps, he figures he can exert his own power and finish what was left undone on March 3, 2018 when he had Wilder in big trouble in the seventh round before losing a 10^th-stoppage. Perhaps, he will re-assert a younger version of himself with some old tricks he learned in Cuba.

It’s hard not to like Ortiz. He has a compelling story that includes his flight in 2005 from Cuba in a desperate battle to help a daughter born with a skin condition.

He’s a quiet man in front of the media.

He’s a dangerous man in front of an opponent.

He also believes now — perhaps more so than ever – that his chances at a heavyweight title have never been better. It’s evident he’s done the work throughout training in Las Vegas, a long way from his home in Miami. If conditioning is any factor, there’s good reason for his confidence.

Physically, he has never looked better. For now, forget the jokes about his age. Forty or 50, he looked as if he were ready to fight a few weeks ago.

But appearances are misleading, if not an outright illusion. Ortiz’ good look doesn’t mean he has found any way to elude Wilder’s wild right hand. Who has?

In all of the attention on that one massive punch, however, Wilder’s durable chin is often overlooked. He can do more than throw a punch. He can take one, too.

That durability allows Wilder to take a fight into later rounds. It’s a factor that multiplies chances that his right hand will land, especially in moments when energy and focus begin to fade. He’s been durable enough to successfully defend his title nine times. Now, it’s time for No. 10 with no real reason to think anything has changed.

Prediction: In a repeat and rematch, Wilder wins another 10^th-round stoppage.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Deontay Wilder likes to talk about differences, what he believes separates him from Luis Ortiz, Tyson Fury and just about everybody else.

He’s different, no doubt, from the kid, who won a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Even then, however, there was a singular difference, one that separated him from every other boxer on the U.S. team. He was the only American in Beijing to medal.

Since then, he’s grown older and louder by multiple decibels. Still, there are questions about how much better he is within the ropes. His right hand is the one thing that continues to make a powerful difference. It is a singular strike, scoring 40 knockouts in 42 fights. He throws it with Tommy Hearns-like leverage.

Fury got up from it in their celebrated draw nearly a year ago. But that was more about Fury and his inexhaustible resilience than Wilder. Yet, there’s a sense – even a fear among promoters planning on a Fury-Wilder rematch in February – that Ortiz has the wherewithal to beat him on Nov. 23 (Fox pay-per-view) in their sequel at Las Vegas MGM Grand.

“He can screw this whole thing up,’’ said promoter Leonard Ellerbe, who didn’t exactly say screw, but you get the idea. “He can screw it up.’’

He can, mostly because of a versatile skill set that makes him more capable of adjusting than Wilder. Longtime boxing observers and bettors have always believed a good boxer beats a power puncher. But Wilder has knocked out that formula while knocking out just about everybody he has faced.

Giving a good boxer a second chance, however, might enhance chances of an Ortiz upset, which also would put all of those plans for Wider-Fury II on hold.

At a media workout a couple of weeks ago in Las Vegas, Ortiz looked as though he was in good enough shape to make lots of adjustments throughout 12 rounds. He blamed fatigue for the loss in their first fight, which ended in a Wilder stoppage in the 10^th.

Ortiz’ confidence matched his well-conditioned appearance. He assured reporters that, yes, he was 40-years-old and not a day older.

Then in a conference call this week, he said the Wilder fight was not his last chance at a heavyweight title.

“No, absolutely not,’’ Ortiz said. “I’m going to win the title, so no need for another opportunity. I will be the champion.’

Wilder scoffed at that, of course.

“This might be his last at 40 years old,’’ Wilder said. “Coming in, we all know when you fight Deontay Wilder, I take something from you. I take years from your life. ‘’

An over the-top confidence has become a noisy trademark for Wilder, who is poised for a 10^th defense of a belt he won in his only decision over Bermane Stiverne on Jan. 17, 2015, also at the MGM Grand.

“I’m a totally different king,’’ Wilder said. “I’m a totally different beast. I’m the best in the world and I prove it each and every time I go in the ring. I’m not worried about going in and making any mistakes and stuff. And if I do make any mistake in the ring, rest assured, I will correct it as the fight goes on.

“I see this fight going one way, and that’s Deontay Wilder knocking out Luis Ortiz, point blank and period.

“You know it.

“He knows it.

“I know it.’’

By Norm Frauenheim-

It was a defining fight for Naoya Inoue. It was also a reason for caution.

In watching Inoue’s courageous brilliance in a unanimous decision over Nonito Donaire early Thursday morning, it was hard not to be reminded that there is huge drama packed into boxing’s smallest weight classes.

From Ricardo Lopez to Michael Carbajal to Roman Gonzalez and now Inoue, there has always been this singular mastery of tactical skill, footwork, instinct and guts. All of those elements make them look bigger. But they’re not.

Inoue, a champion in all three flyweight classes, tested himself against an aging, yet bigger Donaire in a bantamweight bout. For 10-rounds, he fought with blood from a long, deep cut below his right eyebrow dripping into his eye and down his cheek like tears.

He said he suffered from double vision. Yet, he never lost sight of what he wanted. And wants.

“I’m not the greatest of all time, yet,’’ he said while standing in the middle of the ring in Saitama, Japan. “I think I have to go over the fight and get stronger. Next year and on, I’ll keeping fighting. I’ll be victorious.

“I want to be the strongest of all time.’’

Therein lurks the danger.

All-time, at least in this era, means moving up the scale. That’s what Canelo Alvarez was doing just a few days ago in his self-proclaimed pursuit of history in taking a fourth division title, light-heavyweight, in an 11^th-round stoppage of Sergey Kovalev.

For the smallest fighters in the business, moving up in weight is an even bigger hazard. Their smaller frames mean every single pound is a little bit bigger. Against Donaire, there were moments when that small difference in pounds was evident in multiples. Donaire, who has fought at featherweight, rocked him. Cut him.

Inoue fought through all of it, yet it was impossible not to think of an old line, as true now as ever.

To wit:

There are weight classes for a reason.

Now, the 26-year-old Inoue has a Top Rank contract and is expected to continue his career in the United States. Already, there’ s speculation of a fight with Mexican junior-featherweight Emanuel Navarrete, an emerging star after successive victories over Isaac Dogboe.

At 5-foot-7, the Top Rank-promoted Navarrete, 24, is more than two inches taller than Inoue, who is 5-5 ½. Navarrete’s reach is listed at 72 inches, five more than Inoue’s 67. He is rapidly growing into a full-fledged featherweight.

Would he fight Inoue? Of course. Inoue is really a flyweight, whose emerging stardom on different sides of the world is expected to generate heavyweight money.

Inoue might find himself in the same situation as Vasiliy Lomachenko, also a Top Rank fighter. Both are ranked among the top four pound-for-pound contenders in virtually every rating.

In the chase for bigger money and wider fame, Lomachenko has also been moving up the scale. He’s a featherweight campaigning at lightweight. He’s winning, but not without injuries that began with stoppage of Jorge Linares in May 2018. Lomachenko underweight shoulder surgery after that one.

Now, there’s talk that he wants to go back to his natural weight, 126 pounds.

“He wants to go down, because he’s getting touched up,’’ Gervonta Davis said last week while talking about his own move up to lightweight against Yuriorkis Gamboa on Dec. 28 in Atlanta.

Perhaps, that’s for any little guy in any era a lesson for any era. Inoue, the reigning Lord Of The Flies, doesn’t have to go anywhere, at least not in terms of weight.

By Norm Frauenheim-

LAS VEGAS — The road team does win sometimes. Proof of that happened Wednesday night when the Washington Nationals beat the Houston Astros, winning a World Series in which only the road team won.

In more than a century of baseball, that’s never happened. In the 116^{th-version of the modern Series, it finally did. It was hard — make that impossible — not to} wonder whether Sergey Kovalev has any kind of chance against Canelo Alvarez Saturday night (DAZN) at the MGM Grand.

If anybody ever represented a road team, it’s Kovalev, who is the underdog in a bid to stop Canelo from making his own kind of history.

He’s moving up the scale, from middleweight to light-heavyweight, in his pursuit of a fourth division. A victory over Kovalev would put Canelo among the elite in Mexico storied boxing history.

It’s no coincidence that a chance at Mexican history would be played out in front of a Mexican crowd. It’s Canelo’s town. It’ll be his crowd, too. It’s hard to find an oddsmaker, or a fan, or a pundit who doesn’t think it’s his fight, too.

By now, there are familiar theories as to why.

Theory #1: Kovalev is vulnerable to body punches, Canelo’s best punch.

Theory #2: Canelo, 29, is younger and continue to improve. Age has begun to erode the 36-year-old Kovalev’s skill set.

Theory #3: Kovalev has never been the same since Andre Ward stopped him with succession of body punches in their 2017 rematch. Kovalev says the punches were low blows. Maybe, they were. But the damage to the Russian’s career looks to be irreversible.

Apply one theory or all three, and it looks as though  it’s not a matter of if, just when, Canelo adds a fourth division belt to the other three he already has in his personal history.

Throughout this week in Vegas, however, there were subtle signs that it might not be Canelo in blowout. There’s evident personal chemistry between Kovalev and his new trainer, Buddy McGirt, who has scaled back Kovalev’s training. There’s less sparring and more of an emphasis on restoring fundamental technique, especially the jab, Kovalev’s signature punch.

“I’ve told Sergey: ‘You’re an older person now which means you have to be a smarter person,’ ‘’ McGirt said.

Best guess is that smarts, the so-called ring IQ, will prove to be the decisive factor. Canelo appears to have an edge, but it’s to say how much smarter he will be throughout the scheduled 12 rounds. His intelligence, however, has been evident over the last few years. At each opening bell, he adds a new element to his skill set.

There more, a lot more, to what he can do, his trainer Eddy Reynoso says.

“People haven’t seen it all,’’ Reynoso said.

Much of his intelligence is rooted in reasonable caution. Don’t expect him to race at a bigger man with a bigger punch.

“It will be complicated, especially in the early rounds,’’ Canelo said.

It also might be complicated in the later rounds, especially if Kovalev hasn’t left the best of himself in the gym.

From this corner, Kovalev-Canelo figures to go to the scorecards. It’ll be close, but it looks as if Canelo is just a little bit smarter and has more in his ever-evolving skillset.

In this week, the real history belongs to the Nationals and Astros.

Pick: Canelo wins a close, yet unanimous decision. 

By Norm Frauenheim-

They called him Little Hands of Stone. The impact on Arizona was huge and now forever indelible.

Michael Carbajal, the best fighter in the state’s history and one of the best in the history of lightest divisions in long and colorful sport, will be inducted to the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame Friday at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort.

Carbajal, a former junior-flyweight champion, grew up in downtown Phoenix. He earned to box in a makeshift ring in his backyard. Old hoses were used as ropes. There was dirt instead of canvas. Mostly, there’s was Carbajal’s passion and skill for craft sometimes call The Sweet Science. He still lives in the house that is front of that modest training ground.

It produced an Olympic silver medalist at the 1988 Seoul Games.

It produced the first little guy, a 108-pound fighter, to win a $1 million purse for fight in 1994. From the World Boxing Council to the International Boxing Federation, he won multiple titles in pro career that spanned a decade, 1989-1999, and included 53 fights – 49 victories, 33 by knockouts and four losses.

Along the way, there were chances to move on. At times, there were reasons to move on. There was adversity. But Carbajal always said no. He said he would never leave his community, his home town or home state.  As a fighter, he would always say: “Never quit.” Lots of fighters say that. But they never lived up to the promise. Carbajal lived up to it on both sides of the ropes.

He never quit in the ring or on his vow to stay at home.

Now 52 and already a longtime member of several Hals of Fame, including the international Hall in Canastota, N.Y., Carbajal finally joins the Hall that defines who he is:

An Arizonan.

Carbajal is joined in the 2019 class by late University of Arizona football coach Dick Tomey, former Suns forward Tom Chambers, Olympic swimming medalist Amy Van Dyken-Rouen, Diamondbacks President Derrick Hall and former Northern Arizona University trainer Michael Nesbitt.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Star power is behind him. Star potential is within him. What looks so close, however, could suddenly become a star-too-far for Regis Prograis, who is a cutting-edge face to boxing’s emerging generation.

Much, if not all, depends on how Prograis tests his evident charisma and versatile skill-set against Josh Taylor Saturday in a bout (DAZN) loaded with career-defining elements.

Prograis, whose management team incudes Mark Wahlberg and filmmaker Peter Berg, has a back story to tell and he knows how to tell it.

He fled New Orleans and the devastation left by Katrina in 2005. Where there weren’t wrecked homes, there was personal chaos. Prograis survived, then thrived. Out of the storm, came the fighter.

The story introduces him. He’s done the rest, scoring 20 stoppages in 24 victories and winning a junior-welterweight belt. No matter the rating, he’s ranked among the top three at 140-pounds alongside Taylor and Jose Ramirez.

Now, he’s on the road in London, where he puts it all at risk against Taylor (15-0 12KOs), a fighter from Scotland’s Edinburgh who is a slight betting underdog yet figures to be a huge crowd favorite at the O2 Arena in southeast London.

Both left-handers, Taylor has advantages in size. At 5-feet-9, Taylor is an inch taller than the 5-8 Prograis. He has a 2 ½-inch edge in reach. In terms of volume, he figures to have all of the decibels from the crowd cheering in his favor.

It’s hard to pick against him.

“I’m quite a bit better than him in every department,’’ Taylor said Thursday at the final news conference.

No argument there. If a pre-fight news conference is the equivalent of a political debate, however, score this one for Prograis.

“He should be able to land a solid, flush punch on me and when that happens, nothing will happen,’’ said Prograis, who is as comfortable in front of the cameras as he is telling stories. “When that happens, things will change. He will realize that I am an iron-man with an iron jaw.

“Once he lands his hardest shot and I look at him with a face of disdain, he will think: ‘Damn, I’m in trouble.’ “

Damn, he might be right.

Taylor argues that Prograis’ unbeaten record is padded with a lot of nobodies and wannbes. He has yet to encounter Taylor’s kind of power, the Scotsman says.

Yet, it’s also evident that Prograis has almost a quick-silver way of adjusting. His mastery of different looks can confuse even a prepared opponent. In so many words, Prograis says Taylor doesn’t know, can’t see, what’s coming.

Prediction: Prograis wins a decision, unanimous, yet close on every scorecard.

By Norm Frauenheim-

It’s a conflicted sport. That borders on redundancy. Boxing wouldn’t be what it is without conflict. Yet, Patrick Day’s death exposes all of the jagged fault lines that have always been there. Drama and death. What thrills, kills.

It’s all there, hard to explain and now hard to understand. The conflicting emotions from Day’s death four days after suffering traumatic brain injuries in a knockout loss to Charles Conwell figure to haunt the game for a while.

The business moves on. There’s a great fight Friday, Artur Beterbiev-Oleksandr Gvozdyk in Philadelphia. Promoters are calling the light-heavyweight bout (ESPN) a possible Fight of the Year. They’re right. It promises drama. It promises thrills.

Yet, it’s hard to look forward to the looming clash without some trepidation, some anxiety, even some anguish. Cheers will come with concern. Day’s death hangs over the game, leaving troubling questions and a search for answers that might not be there. Yet, the search must happen. Lou DiBella said it best in his statement in the wake of Day’s death Wednesday.

“It becomes very difficult to explain away or justify the dangers of boxing at a time like this,” DiBella said. “This is not a time where edicts or pronouncements are appropriate, or the answers are readily available. It is, however, a time for a call to action. While we don’t have the answers, we certainly know many of the questions, have the means to answer them, and have the opportunity to respond responsibly and accordingly and make boxing safer for all who participate.’’

DiBella, in effect, was making a heartfelt plea. Don’t let Day die in vain. Don’t let Maxim Dadashev and Hugo Santillan die in vain. Both died within days of each other in July. Don’t let Boris Stanchov die in vain. He died of an apparent heart attack during a Sept. 21 fight. 

There are some signs that regulators are trying to make the sport safer for those willing to take the risk, The California State Athletic Commission voted earlier this week to cancel a fight if a fighter is 15 percent above the contracted weight on the day of the bout. It’s believed that wild swings in weight, from the day before to the day of the bout, endanger fighters. Buddy McGirt, Dadashev’s trainer, told www.boxingjunkie.com that weigh-ins should be moved to the day of.

“They should have the weigh-ins the day of the fight,” McGirt said. “Listen, guys don’t fight at their normal weight because they know they have 24 hours to put weight on. Make the weigh-ins the day of the fight. Then you would know that you can’t really dry out and then have an IV and fight five, six hours later.

“I think you’d have less injuries. Say you’re trying to make 140 when you should realistically be at 147. You weigh, say, 143 and think, ‘I can get down to 140.’ But you have to dehydrate yourself, and that’s not good for your body or your brain. I’m not a doctor, but I’m not an idiot either.”

There are other possible safeguards. Day had been knocked down in the fourth and eighth rounds before the fatal blows landed in the 10^th. On this scorecard, he was trailing 89-80. He couldn’t win on points. Given, the prior knockdowns, it was safe – emphasis on safe – to assume he wouldn’t be able to win by a late KO. Why not just stop it after the eighth?

It’s just one question, one of many. In Day’s name and for the sake of a conflicted game, answers are imperative.

By Norm Frauenheim-

It is as unforgiving a business as any. Boxing moves on, always moves on from tragedy. But the game stopped early Thursday morning in Dallas, on a road during the lonely hours after midnight and in the twisted wreckage of what was once a beautiful car.

A beautiful fighter survived just a few weeks after he looked immortal.

Pray for Errol Spence Jr.

He had emerged as a face of a resilient game and it looks as if he might need every bit of that trademark resiliency now. He is coming off the biggest fight of his career into what looks to be the biggest fight of his life. We cheered for him against Shawn Porter throughout 12 rounds of welterweight drama on Sept. 28.

We pray for him now in a collective cry of tweets and thoughts. Porter prays for him. Terence Crawford prays for him.

The news is hopeful. Premier Boxing Champions released a statement, an updated report on his condition fewer than 24 hours after he was rushed to Methodist Dallas Medical Center.

“Spence is awake and responding and his condition is listed as stable,” the PBC statement said. “He did not sustain any broken bones or fractures but has some facial lacerations. He is expected to make a full recovery.

“He is currently resting with his family by his side. They want to thank everyone for their prayers and well wishes and are extremely grateful to the Dallas first responders who rushed to the scene to attend to Errol after the accident and the doctors who are taking care of him at the hospital.”

Exactly what happened is still being pieced together. According to a Dallas police report, Spence, of nearby Desoto, Tex., was driving his white Ferrari at a high speed when the vehicle hit the median and flipped wildly at about 3 a.m, Central Standard Time.

Spence, who reportedly was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown from the car. He was not a boxer then. He was everyman, caught in the cross hairs of time and place, simple physics and scary consequences.

It could’ve been you. Could’ve been me. His fight, our fight, is just starting. Pray that he wins this one.