Eric Armit's World View by Eric Armit Nov 30th 2006

Back in the mid 1950's when I first started compiling boxer's records I was both keen and naive. I found myself getting very excited about a heavyweight out in Mormon country who was knocking over opponents at an incredible rate. His name was Lamar Clark and his recent death brought those heady days back to me. Lamar hailed from Cedar City, Utah and was managed by Merv Jenson who also handled the Fullmer brothers, Gene, Donnie and Jay. Lamar turned pro in January 1958 when he was already 24 years old and won his first fight on points. It was to be the only fight he had that went the distance. By the end of that year he had registered 32 wins with the last 31 all coming inside the distance. In 1959 he recorded another 11 inside the distance wins and with a kayo in at the start of 1960 took his run of consecutive inside the distance wins to 43, which remains a record today. The figures were impressive but do not stand up to scrutiny as most of them would not have been considered as real fights today. For instance in his 1958 run three times he fought two opponents on the same night, once he beat three on the same night and on a notable occasion he beat six in the same night, five inside the first round. Obviously some of these opponents were climbing out of the crowd and were by no stretch of the imagination professionals, so the validity of his record for consecutive inside the distance wins has to be questioned. The run came to an end in April 1960 when they put him in with his first real “professional” opponent, Dominican heavyweight Bartolo Soni, who exposed Lamar as a crude slugger and kayoed him in nine rounds. Two months later Lamar was kayoed by Pete Rademacher, a record maker in his own right, and retired after a kid called Cassius Clay stopped him in two rounds in 1961. Clay, as he was then, remarked that he took a punch in the chest from Lamar that was as hard a punch as he had felt up to that time, but the truth is that Lamar was a very limited fighter with a good punch, but hey it was exciting while it lasted. Rademacher, an Olympic gold medallist, made history by fighting Floyd Patterson for the world heavyweight title in 1957 in his first professional fight(yes there was really a world champion in those days and no sanctioning body around to blame for the stupidity).Pete was out of his depth and lost on a stoppage. A glutton for punishment he then faced Zora Foley in his next fight and was again stopped. He continued as a pro including losing to Brian London in seven rounds in 1960. Could you imagine Audley Harrison fighting for the world title in his first pro fight? I am still having trouble imaging Audley fighting at all. The WBC has introduced a trial period of open scoring in their title fights. The scores of the officials are revealed at the end of each 4 round period. Anything which gives transparency is worth trying. However, when an experiment was carried out years ago in the USA of TV revealing the scoring at the end of each round, I well remember Lou Duva being advised in the corner of the scores and as his fighter was in front but had suffered a cut in a clash of heads he promptly pulled him out knowing that he already had the technical victory in the bag. The real solution is not open scoring it is honest and competent judges but as long as you have the human factor you are going to have controversy as it becomes a beauty contest with all of the bias, personal preferences and susceptibility to influence, that humans are subject to. As a traditionalist it pains me to say it but I would much rather see a trial period of the use of computerised scoring as is currently practised as a supplement to the judges scoring, in some major fights in the USA. Every time I have seen the computerised scoring of punches they have been a better reflection of the fight than the subjective musings of some of the judges. When they publish the figures saying that boxer A landed more punches and more power punches than boxer B the attitude is one of hearing an interesting irrelevance, but that is what scoring is supposed to be about. However, it would be sacrilege to even suggest the use of computers (the stupid way they are used in the amateurs has understandably given a mind set against them) and I can feel the flames for the heretic licking at my feet even now. There seems to have been a sudden epidemic of boxing breaking out in Georgia-that's the Georgia in the Caucasus area not the “Georgia on my Mind” Georgia. On November 16 in Tbilisi local middleweight Shalva Jomardashvili kayoed Paata Varduashvili in two rounds. Shalva, who is 20 years old, now has 21 wins and 16 of those have come on shows in Georgia in the past eleven months. Paata is no slouch himself even though he drops to 24-3-1. They are averaging about two shows a month over there, pretty much fighting amongst themselves, so it is hard to get any form line. They have produced some good amateurs such as Koba Gogoladze who was a bronze medallist in the World championships and World Cup and a European silver medallist and is 20-1 as a pro, and of course the World Amateur champion Georgi Kandelaki, for whom Frank Maloney had such high hopes. Shalva also has some amateur pedigree having competed in the European and World Cadet championships. Let's hope that the activity continues there. There is also a minor breakout of boxing in Namibia. Harry Simon put the country on the map, but as I previously reported he is up to his neck in some very serious trouble which could result in some extended jail time. The next best know Namibian boxer is Ali Nuumbembe who is campaigning here. For a while Bethuel Ushona, a winner over Nuumbembe in 2004, looked as though he was going to be the standard bearer, but he has been inactive since going to the States to fight last year. The new rising star is lightweight Paulus Moses who outpointed the modest Frenchman Frederic Gosset in Oshana on November 11. “The Hitman” has 18 wins and is branching out on to the International scene. You have to wonder about the discipline of some boxers, both inside and outside the ring. Take Bobby Pacquiao, the younger brother of Manny. His previously indifferent career seemed to be really taking off as he beat Carlos Navarro, Carlos Hernandez and Kevin Kelley to get a high rating with all of the sanctioning bodies. On November 16 in Las Vegas he was scheduled to defend his WBC Continental Americas super-featherweight title against Mexican journeyman Hector Velazquez-a mark time match whilst waiting for a real title shot. Bobby came in 4 lbs over the weight and then blew the fight by getting thrown out in the eleventh round for constantly punching low. No discipline in or out of the ring! Nice to see Hector get the win. A pro at 18, and 13 years later has had almost 60 fights and 45 wins to his name (32 inside the distance). He was not an ideal choice for an easy night. Always in tough he has found some form with nine wins in his last ten fights with Manny Pacquiao the only one to beat him in that run. Bobby is just 25 so he can come again, but only if he gets his act together. Still on Filipinos Malcolm Tunacao took his record to 21-1-3 with a points win over Masahito Igawa in Tokyo on November 11. Malcolm holds the OPBF bantamweight title and is a former WBC flyweight champion. The lanky southpaw won the WBC title in May 2000, but lost the title in his second defence in March 2001when in a seriously weight-weakened state he was bounced on the canvas three times in the first round for an ignominious loss to Pongsaklek Wonjongkam. That remains the only defeat for “Eagle Eye” and if he can continue unbeaten then his No 3 ranking with the WBC should land him a title shot. In a couple of results down in Argentina the WBO's No 2 super-bantamweight Sergio Medina moved to 27 wins with a third round stoppage of Paraguay's Dario Azuaga in Rojas on November 3. “Rocky” a 24 year old from Salta does not even make the WBC top 15 which shows the contrast in assessments. Even after his loss to Steve Molitor the WBO still have Michael Hunter at No 8, so all is not lost for him. On the following night light-welterweight Cesar Cuenca continued his amazing career. Cuenca made it 27 wins and one no decision as he outpointed 105 fight veteran Victor Hugo Paz in Caseros. Southpaw Cesar has two nicknames “Uppercut” and “Fred Astaire” which shows some style confusion but take my word for it the real Fred Astaire was the harder puncher as Cesar has only won once inside the distance. I can't think of another fighter who has that many wins and so few inside the distance. When Cesar is fighting no one comes early as you don't have to worry about missing anything. There is a lot of boxing in the Mexican “Provinces” which goes unreported and as a result fighters can battle away there without attracting any publicity and then emerge on the world scene as well developed fighters. Cristian Mijares is one of those. He rumbled away in the backwaters for seven years before breaking through in 2004 and in September this year went to Japan and beat former champion Katsuhige Kawashima for the vacant interim WBC super-flyweight title. He has not let the grass grow under his feet and on November 17, back in his home territory of Torreon, he made his first defence of his title with a points win over Reynaldo Lopez. The 25 year old southpaw has a 29-3-2 record but is on an unbeaten run of 19 wins and a draw (with world rated flyweight Luis Maldonado), stretching back to 2002. There were rumours that the WBC champion Masanori Tokuyama was thinking of going into K1 fighting, but if he decides against it then Cristian is waiting for him. On the same Torreon show another local who suddenly sprang onto the world scene scored an easy win as light-middleweight Marco Antonio Rubio beat Gustavo Castrov on a second round retirement. Rubio has a 35-4-1 record but had lost his last two. You could not confuse his style with the dancing of Fred Astaire as 31 of his 35 wins have come inside the distance. Boxing lost a strong and influential figure in Ruben Martinez, the President of the EBU who passed away suddenly, and I can express my belated condolences to his family. Under his leadership the EBU was expanded considerably and is now a major force in the boxing world and he was also a large influence in the WBC. He will be greatly missed. The world rolls on, the King is dead, and now the power battle to replace him will begin. I would love to see the Swiss representative Peter Stucki get the job as he is one of the most experienced and honest people in the business but there will be some very political power plays going on and “the best man for the job” is not one of the criteria in European boxing politics. One to watch: Venezuelan southpaw Patrick Lopez. A classy 28 year old light-welterweight with eight wins. Long amateur pedigree including South American champion in 1998 and 2002, Central American champion in 2000 and 2002 and Pan American champion in 2003, but came up short in Athens Olympics. Despite this has looked very impressive. Only drawback is a bad cut in his last fight, but if he does not have a weakness there then he could go far.

Go back Comment on this article | Send to a friend | Print

Please login before posting comments.

There are no comments. Click here to be the first who comment on this article.