Boxing Junkie managed to link Ukrainian legends Vasiliy Lomachenko and Wladimir Klitschko in spite of their weight disparity.
Six degrees of separation is a theory that everyone in the world is separated by no more than six social connections.
In other words, you know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows Queen Elizabeth. Or so the concept goes.
We’re borrowing the six degrees concept – well, sort of loosely – to connect fighters from the past to their more contemporary counterparts in our new occasional feature, “Degrees of Separation.”
Example: Let’s connect Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Super easy; we did it in two steps. Senior fought Grover Wiley, who fought Junior.
In this installment of the Boxing Junkie feature, we decided to challenge ourselves. We set out to link arguably the two greatest Ukrainian fighters of all time — current lightweight titleholder Vasiliy Lomachenko and retired heavyweight champ Wladimir Klitschko — without knowing whether it was possible.
Remember, Lomachenko started his career at 126 pounds and currently fights at 135. Klitschko fought at more than 240 pounds. We wondered whether it would be possible to find the opponents necessary to bridge that enormous gap.
Also, we didn’t have much to work with in Lomachenko’s case; he has had only 15 opponents.
How did it go? Very well, thank you. It turned out to be fairly easy to link the two countrymen. It took more steps than we would’ve liked — 10 — but we’ll take that given what seemed to be a difficult task at best.
Check it out:
Vasiliy Lomachenko fought …
Jorge Linares, who fought …
Antonio DeMarco, who fought …
Adrien Broner, who fought …
Manny Pacquiao, who fought …
Oscar De La Hoya, who fought …
Bernard Hopkins, who fought …
Roy Jones Jr., who fought …
John Ruiz, who fought …
David Haye, who fought …
Wladimir Klitschko
Could you do it in fewer steps? Let us know via Twitter or Facebook. Or you can contact me on Twitter. And please follow us!
Six degrees of separation is a theory that everyone in the world is separated by no more than six social connections. In other words, you know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows Queen Elizabeth. …
Six degrees of separation is a theory that everyone in the world is separated by no more than six social connections.
In other words, you know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows Queen Elizabeth. Or so the concept goes.
We’re borrowing the six degrees concept – well, sort of loosely – to connect fighters from the past to their more contemporary counterparts in our new occasional feature, “Degrees of Separation.”
Example: Let’s connect Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Super easy; we did it in two steps. Senior fought Grover Wiley, who fought Junior.
In this installment of the Boxing Junkie feature, we connect Hall of Famer “Fighting” Harada, who is generally recognized as the greatest Japanese fighter of all time, to countryman Naoya Inoue, the best from Japan today.
It took us more steps than we would’ve liked, 12, but we got there. Harada last fought 50 years ago.
Check it out:
Fighting Harada fought …
Lionel Rose, who fought …
Rafael Limon, who fought …
Hector Camacho, who fought …
Oscar De La Hoya, who fought …
Manny Pacquiao, who fought …
Adrien Broner, who fought …
Antonio DeMarco, who fought …
Jorge Linares, who fought …
Vassiliy Lomachenko, who fought …
Guillermo Rigondeaux, who fought …
Nonito Donaire, who fought …
Naoya Inoue
Could you do it in fewer steps? Let us know via Twitter or Facebook. Or you can contact me on Twitter. And please follow us!
Ryan Garcia still has a lot to prove but first-round knockouts — like the one he turned in Saturday — generate excitement.
GOOD
Ryan Garcia’s one-punch knockout of Francisco Fonseca only 1 minute, 20 seconds into their lightweight fight Friday doesn’t prove much because Fonseca is nothing special.
The excitement Garcia created with his second consecutive first-round stoppage is genuine, though. He’s blossoming into a potential star. That’s what happens when your results in the ring start to catch up to the hype.
Indeed, almost any fighter would love to be in Garcia’s position.
Of course, he still has a long way to go. Only 21, he still hasn’t faced a legitimate threat. Only a true test can give us an idea of how good Garcia truly is and can be.
It could come soon. Oscar De La Hoya, Garcia’s promoter, is eyeing a matchup between Garcia and former three-division titleholder Jorge Linares in July. If Garcia can win that fight – a big if, in my opinion – he will have made a strong statement.
I wonder whether Garcia’s handlers would live to regret the decision to fight the gifted Linares, who demonstrated in his fourth-round knockout of Carlos Morales on the Garcia-Fonseca card that he has more to give, but I would applaud the bold move.
Garcia, bubbling with confidence, definitely thinks big. He reeled off immediately after his stoppage of Fonseca a gauntlet of opponents he’d like to face in the near future – Linares, Luke Campbell, Gervonta Davis and Devin Haney.
That’s quite a gauntlet he’s laid out for himself. We’ll see how many of them – if any – he fights and how he performs once he does.
In the meantime, Garcia has our attention. That’s more than all but a few professional boxers can say.
BAD
Referee Jack Reiss watches closely as a wild ending to the Abel Ramos-Bryant Perrella fight unfolds. Stephanie Trapp / TGB Promotions
The last-second stoppage of the Abel Ramos-Bryant Perrella fight on the Caleb Plant-Vincent Feigenbutz card Saturday in Nashville might’ve seemed cruel to Perrella, who was winning on all cards when he lost in an instant.
The fact is referee Jack Reiss was following the rules.
According to the Unified Rules of Boxing, under which that bout was fought, “A fighter cannot be saved by the bell in any round, including the final round.” That means, if I understand it correctly, an injured boxer must be in condition to fight even if the three minutes of the last round has expired.
Reiss judged that Perrella, who had gone down twice in the final seconds, was in no condition to continue and waved off the fight.
The frustration expressed by Perrella’s cornerman Michael Nowling in the ring immediately after the stoppage was understandable: “We won every round and they took it from us with 1 second left.”
The rules took it from Perrella, not “they.” And not Reiss. The referee, as trainer and TV analyst Joe Goossen said, isn’t a timekeeper. His job is to look after the welfare of the combatants in the ring with him and follow the rules.
That’s what Reiss did. Good stoppage.
WORSE
Vincent Feigenbutz (left) didn’t have the tools to compete with Caleb Plant on Saturday night. Stephanie Trapp / TGB Promotions
It seems to me that sanctioning bodies are supposed to have a champion and then rank the next 10 best contenders in each division.
The reality? The alphabet organizations rank their contenders based less on merit than on how much money they can make. The result of that is a matchup like Caleb Plant vs. Vincent Feigenbutz for Plant’s IBF super middleweight title.
Feigenbutz, ranked No. 1 by the IBF, is a strong, sturdy young man but he had no business in the ring with a fighter of Plant’s ability. The fact he was the mandatory challenger is yet another red flag that the system is a mess.
Plant’s title defense, which ended by 10th-round knockout, couldn’t even be described as a competitive fight. Feigenbutz, an eight-year pro, has rudimentary skills and courage but not the tools to give the titleholder a legitimate challenge. Aren’t title fights supposed to be competitive at least on paper?
Anyone watching that fight who didn’t feel sorry for the German in the latter rounds has no heart. And anyone not disgusted with the IBF has no sense.
Sadly, there is no solution is sight. Some sort of oversight body – ideally an international one – might help but that isn’t going to happen any time soon. I personally try to minimize the sanctioning bodies by mentioning them infrequently but that’s only a small gesture.
We’re stuck with the murky alphabet soup and mismatches like Plant-Feigenbutz. I just hope fans can see through their self-serving game.
Jorge Linares looked like the Jorge Linares of old on Friday night. The former three-division titleholder stopped Carlos Morales at 2:09 of Round 4 in a scheduled 10-round lightweight bout on the Ryan Garcia-Francisco Fonseca on Friday night at …
Jorge Linares looked like the Jorge Linares of old on Friday night.
The former three-division titleholder stopped Carlos Morales at 2:09 of Round 4 in a scheduled 10-round lightweight bout on the Ryan Garcia-Francisco Fonseca on Friday night at Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif.
Linares (46-5, 28 KOs) has now won two in a row since he was stopped by Pablo Cesar Cano in an ill-fated attempt to eventually win a title in a fourth division, junior welterweight.
Linares, prone to being cut, suffered a gash above his left eye as a result of an accidental head butt in the first round. In the second, Morales (19-5-4, 8 KOs) landed a number of eye-catching punches and might’ve won the round.
However, in the third, a short right from Linares put Morales down and hurt him. He said on his way to his corner, “What hit me?”
He never really figured that out because the same punch, a short right, put him down on his behind and into the ropes. He was unable to continue.
Morales had never been stopped in his career.
Linares looked sharp, but apparently he believes he can do more.
“I’m surprised at myself because I know I can demonstrate even more than that,” the Japan-based Venezuelan said through a translator.
We’ll probably see. Linares, 34, now seems to be on his way to challenging for a 135-pound title. One possibility: Ryan Garcia.
Jorge Linares will try to fight his way back into the 135-pound title mix on a card featuring Ryan Garcia vs. Francisco Fonseca on Feb. 14.
Former lightweight champion Jorge Linares will try to fight his way back into the title mix on a card featuring Ryan Garcia vs. Francisco Fonseca on Feb. 14 at Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
Golden Boy Promotions announced Monday that Linares (46-5, 28 KOs) will face Carlos Morales (19-4, 8 KOs) on the DAZN-streamed card.
“2019 was a difficult year, but I’ve been through ups and downs in my career before, and I’ve always come back,’’ Linares said. “On Feb. 14, I’m going to show why I became a four-time world champion by scoring a dominant win. After that, I hope to fight for a world title very soon.”
Linares, who has won belts at featherweight, junior lightweight and lightweight, moved up to 140-pounds last Jan. 18 and suffered a first-round knockout against Pablo Cesar Cano in New York. The 34-year-old Venezuelan came back on Sept. 7, winning a decision over Filipino Al Toyogon in Japan.
A Linares victory could put him in line to fight Ryan Garcia, if Garcia beats Fonseca.
Morales, a 29-year-old Mexican, is a former junior lightweight who will be fighting at 135 pounds for the third time. He lost a majority decision to Garcia on Sept. 1, 2018 in Indio, California.
Ryan Garcia will make his first appearance in the New Year on Feb. 14 against Francisco Fonseca at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
Emerging lightweight Ryan Garcia will make his first appearance in the New Year on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, against Francisco Fonseca at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, Golden Boy Promotions and DAZN announced this week.
Garcia (19-0, 16 KOs) set the stage for a promising 2020 with a stunning first-round stoppage of Filipino Romero Duno on Nov. 2 on a card that featured Canelo Alvarez’s 10th-round knockout of Sergey Kovalev at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.
“I’m very excited to be in the ring once again,” Garcia said in a release announcing the bout. “I’m looking to shock the world this year. I’m going to show the boxing world that I’m here forever.”
Fonseca (25-2-2, 19 KOs) is coming off a draw with Alex Dilmaghani on Nov. 16 in London.
“When I face Ryan Garcia, I will expose him on his own territory,’’ said Fonseca, a Nicaraguan.
Former lightweight champion Jorge Linares (46-5, 28 KO) also is expected to be on the card, setting up a possible Linares-Garcia bout if both win. An opponent for Linares has yet to be announced.
Pablo Cesar Cano survived a first-round knock down to stop Roberto Ortiz in Round 2 Saturday, Cano’s third straight victory.
Pablo Cesar Cano is a living example that good things can happen if you don’t give up, both in his career and in his fight on Saturday.
The Mexican junior welterweight went through a stretch between 2012 and 2017 when he went 4-6 (with one no-contest). He lost to some good fighters and came up short on some close decisions. Still, the boxer-puncher seemed to be going nowhere.
Then, this past January in New York, Cano turned in one of the year’s biggest upsets when he stopped Jorge Linares in the first round. He followed that with another victory on Saturday in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, although it came with a scare courtesy of opponent Roberto Ortiz.
Cano (33-7-1, 23 knockouts) came out firing at the opening bell but it was Cano, perhaps overconfident, who went down from a big right and was hurt. However, he survived and quickly turned the tables. In second round, Ortiz went down under a barrage of hard shots and couldn’t continue.
Pablo Cesar Cano, who went down in the first round, turned the tables on Roberto Ortiz in Round 2. Tom Hogan-Hoganphotos / Golden Boy Promotions
“Ortiz was a great opponent,” Cano said. “We were aware of how strong he was and how much power he had in his shots. He caught me early, but because of my conditioning, I was able to recover well and go for the knockout.”
That makes three consecutive victories for Cano, the first time he has turned that trick since 2012. He was ranked No. 6 by one sanctioning body, meaning a title shot might not be far off if he continues to win.
Cano lost to Erik Morales in his only fight for a world title back in 2011. He lost to then-welterweight titleholder Paulie Malignaggi the following but failed to make weight, meaning he couldn’t win the belt.
In the co-main event, Ricardo Sandoval (17-1, 12 KOs) stopped Gilberto Gonzalez(15-3-1, 12 KOs) in the fifth round of a scheduled 10-round flyweight fight.
