Last weekend proved to be a strange one as far as boxing was concerned and most of the weird stuff took place outside of the squared circle.
Let's start with the Friday night fights shown live on ESPN2 from Bally's in Atlantic City.
The main event was set to be Vivian Harris fighting Carlos Rubio in a 10-round welterweight fight. However, on the Monday before the fight, Harris was mugged and stabbed on his way to the gym!
Harris will be OK and recovered in the hospital and now at home but his fight career is now on hold until his injuries are evaluated in regard to boxing but he will be back, according to those in his camp.
So, on Tuesday, late substitute Teddy Reid replaced Harris on the card and to almost everyone's surprise, Reid turned out to be a pretty good late sub. I say surprise because most late subs usually stick around for three or four rounds and then run out of gas and find a soft spot on the canvas to lie down and call it a night .... Not so with Reid!
He came out strong, floored Rubio twice and hurt him badly in round one. Reid had Rubio down again in round two and that was that. The referee stopped the one-sided fight at the 52-second mark of round two. A good call by referee Earl Morton, I will add.
They showed some prelim bouts on the telecast and in one of them, unbeaten Anthony Hanshaw (6-0, 5 KOs) won a six-round decision from Ronald Boddie (8-9-3, 3 KOs) as Hanshaw, just 22 years old, builds a record. The future heavyweight - he now fights as a light heavyweight but will grow into a heavyweight - is trained by former Olympic gold medalist and former world champion Mark Breland.
This coming Friday at 6 p.m., the main event on ESPN2 should be a dandy when Dana Rosenblatt (36-1-1, 23 KOs) slugs it out against Will McIntyre (24-1, 10 KOs) over 10 rounds.
- The strange stuff continued on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
First, Showtime was set to televise the main event between Paulie Ayala and Johnny Tapia on a same-day tape at 10 p.m. When 10 o'clock came, no fight. Still no fight at 11 p.m. Finally at midnight they came on with the fight and the strange stuff continued as neither fighter wanted to be the first to make his ring entrance and even though Tapia lost the coin flip to determine who would enter the ring first, he still refused so both fighters entered the ring at the same time as their "entrance music" blasted throughout the arena. Sort of like, Stupid is as Stupid does.
The 12-round featherweight fight was a dandy. Both took and gave all through the fight and when the decision was announced giving Ayala a unanimous decision win, Tapia went nuts. Tapia, who came in as an 8-5 favorite, had to be restrained and escorted from the ring.
But that's not all. One of Tapia's cornermen then punched the promoter in the face and was arrested! Just more stupid stuff that surrounded the fight.
Tapia (48-2-2) and both his losses have come against Ayala, who improved to 31-1. Carson City boxing judge Keith Macdonald was one of the three judges who worked the main event fight.
- Also on Saturday night, HBO came with its "Boxing After Dark" series and they showed two excellent heavyweight fights that came from Ledyard, Conn.
First up was Lance "Mount" Whitaker facing undefeated Robert Davis. The 6-foot, 8-inch tall Whitaker towered over the 6-2 Davis and outweighed him 253 to 236. It looked like David was fighting Goliath.
This time around, Goliath won! In one of the better action heavyweight fights for as long as it lasted, both fighters went at each other from the opening bell before the bigger and the stronger Whitaker prevailed. Whitaker knocked Davis down three times in round two, all from right hand shots to the head, and the fight was stopped on the three-knockdown rule at 2:29 of round two. It was an impressive win for Mount, who improved to 22-1-1 with 17 KOs. Davis is now 22-1, 17 KOs.
The main event was also a good one as undefeated Kirk Johnson (30-0-1, 22 KOs) took on Russian fighter Oleg Maskaev (20-3, 15 KOs) in a scheduled 12-rounder. Johnson lost the first three rounds and had his knees buckled from a right to the jaw at the end of round one. He looked like a loser when early in round four he caught Maskaev, who now fights out of Brooklyn, N.Y., with a hard left hook to the chin. Maskaev went down, got up shakily and Johnson then knocked him through the ropes and out with a flurry of punches at the 51-second mark of round four. An impressive win by Johnson, who fights out of Nova Scotia, Canada.
- Things returned to normal on Sunday. Univision showed its live main event from the Plaza Hotel/Casino in Las Vegas at noon. It was a lively lightweight fight between Alejandro Gonzalez (44-4, 31 KOs) and undefeated favorite Omar Bernal (18-0-2, 14 KOs) over 10 rounds. Gonzalez knocked Bernal down twice in the fight and coasted to an easy unanimous decision win in a mild upset.
- Sunday night FOX Sports came with a two-hour telecast from Elgin, Ill. The main event saw another mild upset when Ricky Quiles (29-4-2, 8 KOs), won by majority decision over Mark Suarez, now 18-2 with 6 KOs. The junior welterweight 10-rounder was a good action fight. Suarez some may remember stopped Carson City's Miguel Angel Ruiz 13-fight win streak by taking a decision from Ruiz back in April of 1999.
- One more strange fight coming a week from Friday as Mike Tyson and Andrew Golota square off over 10 rounds from Auburn Hills, Mich. More on that fight next week ....
Alan Rogers is the Nevada appeal boxing writer.