No Holds Barred: Keith Thurman, Luis Collazo, PBC at Mid-Year

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman spoke with WBA welterweight champion Keith Thurman (25-0, 21 KOs) and former welterweight champion Luis Collazo (36-6, 19 KOs), who fight Saturday, July 11, at the USF Sun Dome in Tampa, Florida. This fight will be telecast live in the U.S. on ESPN, and will be the first on that network for the Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) series.

We spoke with both Keith Thurman and Luis Collazo on Tuesday's media conference call.

We also evaluate the progress of the PBC in the first half of 2015, and conclude that while a number of errors have been made, overall PBC deserves a grade of B or B-, with many more positive accomplishments than negative ones. Still, PBC needs to do more in terms of making stars out of its fighters and creating buzz, as well as utilizing the Internet and social media better than they do now.

While PBC has been running live boxing shows on network and basic cable channels almost every week since March, promoters like Top Rank and Golden Boy, who could not get such exposure despite being around far longer than PBC, have opted to sue PBC, instead of changing their ways. We discuss why these suits are mostly baseless, although the issue of PBC acting as both a promoter and manager for fighters, especially when TV plays such a key role in the business of boxing, will have to be addressed.

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No Holds Barred: Wallace Matthews on Boxing, Baseball, and the Media

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman spoke with longtime boxing and baseball journalist Wallace Matthews.

After being one of the most prominent and respected boxing writers for decades as well as covering other sports since 1983 as a reporter, columnist, radio host, and TV commentator for Newsday, the New York Post, the New York Sun, and ESPN New York 98.7 FM, he is now covering the New York Yankees for ESPNNewYork.com.

We spoke with him by phone Tuesday.

"It's kind of like I'm doing my career backwards, because most people start out doing a team beat like I'm doing now, and then move on to write a column. I kind of did it the opposite way. I did boxing for a long time and I wrote a general column for about 15 years, and now I'm a beat man for ESPNNewYork on the Yankees," he said.

"They are a very interesting team, a team that keeps you busy, because there's never any shortage of storylines. And a very, very different world from covering boxing, I must tell you."

But he added, "I wouldn't say that it's a world I prefer, I must tell you. I really enjoyed covering boxing. I think it was the best time in my life and the best time in my career. But it does have its own challenges, and I'm never bored, I'll tell you that much. I'm never bored covering the Yankees."

We discussed why he enjoys boxing so much and sees it as the greatest test for an athlete in any sport, the difference in the athletes in boxing and baseball, the lack of adequate safety precautions for boxers by the political appointees on state commissions, the risks of brain damage in boxing, the failure of much of the boxing and general sports media to address the problems in the sport, and why he would go back to covering boxing if he had the opportunity.

We also discussed baseball and the New York Yankees, including some of the issues around the Biogenesis doping scandal and Alex Rodriguez, why he does not like doing predictions of a team's chances before the season but has to do so anyway, the failure of much of the baseball and general sports media to address the problems in the sport, and much more.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link doesn't work, please try another.

No Holds Barred is also available on mobile phones and iPads through Stitcher.

Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

ONE Fighting Championship. ONE FC is Asia's largest and most prestigious mixed martial arts event. ONE FC features the best Asian fighters and has initiated the ONE Asia Partnership Network, which includes most of the major MMA promotions and MMA gyms in Asia. For more information, go to their web site, at ONEFC.com.

American Top Team. Whether you're a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at http://americantopteam.com/.

No Holds Barred: Charles Farrell Reviews Klitschko-Chagaev Fight and Awful State of Heavyweight Boxing

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman speaks with our colleague and correspondent, Charles Farrell.

In a spirited and lengthy discussion, we review Wladimir Klitschko's predictable TKO victory over Ruslan Chagaev on Saturday, June 20, in Germany in a fight for several alphabet heavyweight belts. We critique this fight and the performance of both fighters, as well as the entire woeful heavyweight division.

We also discuss the disgraceful state of boxing journalism today, and why we do not take seriously what we read in The Ring magazine, including their recognition of Wladimir Klitschko as their "heavyweight champion of the world". And we lament the danger both to fighter safety and public health that this fight entailed, since Chagaev had tested positive for the hepatitis B antigen, and would not have been allowed to fight in many countries.

But we also explain why we do see hope for boxing in many other weight divisions, and especially outside the U.S.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here. You can also download No Holds Barred here. If one link does not work, please try another. The show is in MP3 format, so may take some time to download.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", by Ian Carpenter.

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The Defeat of the Undefeated Record

Yes, it was only a four-round club fight in Scranton, PA, but we, the members of the Royal Order of Cynical Boxing Writers, all knew that 9-0 John Mackey would take out 6-3 Josh Snyder on this week’s ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights”, didn’t we? That’s what this series is for, showcasing undefeated house fighters in mismatches, right?

If you went to take a shower, re-heat that old Chinese food in your fridge before it required burial in a lead case, or check Craigslist to find true love tonight, you missed yet another in a string of upsets on this and the ESPN2 “Wednesday Night Fight’ series in recent weeks.

While the 34-year-old Mackey took the opening round, the 28-year-old Snyder decked him and hurt him in the second. Mackey had his best round in the third, and was still in the fight. But Snyder came out aggressively in the fourth, and knocked Mackey down again. Mackey rallied towards the end of that round, but with two rounds that should have been 10-8 for Snyder, Mackey had lost.

The Pennsylvania judges almost managed to get it wrong, giving Snyder only a majority decision with scores of 39-37, 38-37, and, incredibly, 38-38. Still, Mackey became the latest fighter to fall from the supposedly hallowed ranks of the undefeated, and on national television as well.

Just two days earlier, on June 11, IBF top 154-pound contender Sechew Powell of Brooklyn, fighting in Manhattan’s Hard Rock Café and also on ESPN2, was stopped in the seventh round by unheralded 22-year-old Deandre Latimore of Las Vegas and St. Louis. Powell, now 23-2, is promoted by Seminole Warriors Boxing, the lead promoter of this card and whose Seminole Tribe also owns the Hard Rock. All of the prior fights of Latimore, now 19-1 with 16 KOs, had been in the great boxing state of Missouri against little-known opposition, with his one loss coming by KO against Ian Gardner last year.

Add these to the following upsets of the undefeated on ESPN2 in recent months:

Junior middleweight James Moore, then 15-0, originally from Ireland and now fighting out of New York, lost an eight-round unanimous decision June 4 in Brooklyn to Gabe Rosado, then 9-2, and was dropped in the fifth round.

Cruiserweight Aaron Williams, then 17-0, was stopped May 23 in the fifth round by Jose Luis Herrera, 15-4, in Lincoln, Rhode Island, on a card run by Williams’s promoter, CES.

Super bantamweight Mike Oliver, then 17-0, of Hartford, Conn., was stopped May 7 in the third round by journeyman Reynaldo Lopez, 28-5, in Boston.

Middleweight Andy Lee, then 15-0, touted so highly by manager-trainer Emanuel Steward that he openly said he wanted Lee to face champion Kelly Pavlik later this year, was stopped in the seventh round March 21 by Brian Vera of “The Contender”.

What is happening with all these uppity opponents? Part of it is that these prospects have padded records which are not indicative of their true ability or potential. Part of it is that the matchmaking is either becoming better in that they are being paired up tightly, or worse, in that the planned mismatches are going awry.

The fans, of course, benefit by seeing fights with less predictable outcomes. But the real loser should be the widespread belief by network suits, promoters, and their media shills that an undefeated record usually signifies much more than that the fighter having one has yet to face serious opposition.

Boxing is destroying itself as those in charge of it continue to try to treat the fans like idiots by booking these mismatches. One of the reasons mixed martial arts is attracting more younger fans than boxing is that a loss or even a few losses is not a career killer in that sport. The fans in boxing have long ago figured out what these set-ups are all about, and have decided to stay home or watch something else other than boxing’s might-as-well-be-fixed fights. The younger mma fans do not mainly come from boxing, but are the types of people who years ago would have been attracted to it.

So what will the boxing promoters do, learn from this interesting string of upsets, or just keep on riding their horses and buggies straight to hell?

Shit, why do I even waste my time asking, especially when there’s still time for me to get to the barroom?

Chuck Davey Still Fights on TV

Numbed by the ceaseless onslaught of mediocre boxing and mixed martial arts on television (at least the U.S. National Wrestling Championships are on ESPNU beginning Wednesday and Thursday of this week), I sought boob tube refuge late Tuesday night by switching on ESPN Classic at midnight. Most nights at that hour, they air old fights, ranging from recent bouts of varying interest to old, black-and-white fights, also of varying interest.

That night they played the original Pabst Blue Ribbon Wednesday Night Fights broadcast of the Chuck Davey-Rocky Graziano bout of Sept. 17, 1952. The announcer even brought on Jim Norris, head of the notorious International Boxing Club, and called him his "buddy."

Davey was a favorite of the IBC and the television networks because he had a master's degree, was fair-haired and fair-skinned, and was a college boxing champion and an Olympian. That he slapped and flung his feathery punches didn’t matter to them, since he threw lots of them while dancing around the ring, and for the beginning of his career, the IBC boys made sure that most of his opponents cooperated with the plan.

While this was Graziano's last pro fight, it looked suspicious to me that he let this light-hitting college boy punch him round after round while hardly firing back, except for a few haymakers, most of which didn't come close to landing. ESPN Classic did not add any wrap-arounds or graphics to the broadcast to put any of this in context. So I went to that boxing expert, Mr. Google, to find out more about this fight.

I found an article by Dan Parker from The Ring in 1953 which called this "an obvious handcuff job for the Rock." More importantly, however, was Parker's wholesale attack on the IBC and the networks.

The article is called "I SAY THE BOXING BUSINESS SMELLS." It has been reproduced on the BAWLI papers, which are archived on cyberboxingzone.com. Part one is at http://cyberboxingzone.com/bawli/bawli31.txt and part two is at http://cyberboxingzone.com/bawli/bawli32.txt.

I heartily recommend everyone read this expose. There is just nothing like it nowadays. While the likes of Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo have been largely replaced by "legitimate" businessmen in suits and with more degrees than Chuck Davey, many of the same problems boxing had in the 1950’s persist, albeit in different forms.

What is clearly far worse is the level of journalism and writing. Not only is The Ring now part of the Golden Boy Promotions publicity machine, but nowhere else can a writer earn a living while even coming close to writing the kind of expose Parker did.

Davey, by the way, with a record of 37-0-2, got a welterweight title shot a few months later against Kid Gavilan, on Feb. 11, 1953. He was basically destroyed, being dropped in the first and three times in the ninth, with the bout being halted before the tenth round started. His padded undefeated record had gotten him to a title shot, but here the games finally had to end.

So perhaps it is fitting that Chuck Davey still fights on TV. The networks continue to love these undefeated fighters who have not challenged the best out there. They may not be as ruthless and reckless as the IBC was, but they still feed them guppies until it is their turn to be devoured by the sharks.