BoxRec

Chuck Davey

Roberto Duran & Sugar Ray Leonard

kikibalt wrote:
Roberto Duran & Sugar Ray Leonard

I was about to post this, too, Frankie.
Duran, two months away from Hagler, looks in good shape.

Photo by Rick Farris


Mando Ramos' wife Sylvia and Rick Farris.

bennie wrote:

kikibalt wrote:
Roberto Duran & Sugar Ray Leonard

I was about to post this, too, Frankie.
Duran, two months away from Hagler, looks in good shape.

Bennie, you just have to be a bit faster....

Carl "Bobo" Olson

Ingemar Johansson

Photo by Diego


Alex Ramos and Terry Norris

Luis "El Feo" Rodriguez

By Diego

kikibalt wrote:Photo by Diego


Alex Ramos and Terry Norris

People same to rave about Norris whenever he gets a mention, but he never did anything for me. His feet were always a bit funny, much like Roy Jones and his left foot pointed inwards. A silly comment, perhaps, but watching Jones against Calzaghe the other day brought it all back.

kikibalt wrote:Photo by Rick Farris


Mando Ramos' wife Sylvia and Rick Farris.

Powerful stuff.

bennie wrote:

kikibalt wrote:Photo by Diego


Alex Ramos and Terry Norris

People same to rave about Norris whenever he gets a mention, but he never did anything for me. His feet were always a bit funny, much like Roy Jones and his left foot pointed inwards. A silly comment, perhaps, but watching Jones against Calzaghe the other day brought it all back.

Ditto, Bennie. I keep thinking back to a story Joe Goossen told me about Norris. Terry had called Joe to ask him to train him for a comeback fight. Goossen said, "OK, when are you coming to the Valley?" Norris told Goossen that he couldn't leave San Diego, that Joe would have to come south. Joe said he couldn't leave his other fighters, the fighter would have to come to L.A. Norris says, "But I can't leave S.D. It's my wife, I don't trust her, she might fool around on me. What should I do?" Goossen's answer was simple . . . "Get rid of the bitch."

-Rick

Rick Farris wrote:

bennie wrote:

kikibalt wrote:Photo by Diego


Alex Ramos and Terry Norris

People same to rave about Norris whenever he gets a mention, but he never did anything for me. His feet were always a bit funny, much like Roy Jones and his left foot pointed inwards. A silly comment, perhaps, but watching Jones against Calzaghe the other day brought it all back.

Ditto, Bennie. I keep thinking back to a story Joe Goossen told me about Norris. Terry had called Joe to ask him to train him for a comeback fight. Goossen said, "OK, when are you coming to the Valley?" Norris told Goossen that he couldn't leave San Diego, that Joe would have to come south. Joe said he couldn't leave his other fighters, the fighter would have to come to L.A. Norris says, "But I can't leave S.D. It's my wife, I don't trust her, she might fool around on me. What should I do?" Goossen's answer was simple . . . "Get rid of the bitch."

-Rick

What are the Goossens like, Rick? They brought Nunn through, did a great restoration job with Duarte, and the Ruelas brothers were always brilliant value. Some of their antics at ringside, though, didn't shine them in a good light.
Still, they seem to care.

A HALF CENTURY

"Weenie,ven"
My wife came in from the other room. I was watching ESPN Sports Classics.Emile Griffith and Indio Ortega,1960.
"Remember the Tijuanero and the negrito con los fotos?"
"Son ellos?"asked my wife.
My wife usually isn't interested in any of this,but this time she sat down and watched.
"Mira",exclaimed my wife."Increible. Que joven."
Yes,these two were something in their day. At that time Griffith had 15 fights and was 21. Gaspar was 24 and had fought over 70 bouts.
"Gaspar's from Tijuana Mexico,"said the the announcer Win Elliot. "Griffith,from the Virgin Islands. An international flavor."


This was Emile's breakout fight. Ortega had fought them all. The fight was fast. Griffith's footwork was amazing. He had so much skill for a young fighter. Movement ,double jabs,a beautifull straight right. He knew how to go downstairs. And Ortega was a tough dude. Countering to the body. Hooking lefts to the chin and then going downstairs. It's like going to a jazz concert and watching how two beautifull musicians improvise.

My wife didn't leave the room until the decision was rendered. Emile by a split decision. I remember after that fight I saw Ortega in Tijuana in Colonia Morelos where he lived buying tacos for all the people in the park that day. Then I thought of what Griffith and Ortega would have been like today fighting. And you can throw in Paret and "El Feo" in the mix. They'd be making some "scratch",and by the way, "Pretty Boy" would be watching his ass.

Margarito vs Mosley Canceled
November 20, 2008 by Edgar Gonzalez


By Steve Kim,
Contrary to some internet rumors that were floating around, Antonio Margarito was not kidnapped in Tijuana by a gang of bandits holding him for ransom. Nor was he was buried underneath the Meadowlands of New Jersey next to Jimmy Hoffa. He didn’t disappear into ‘the Bermuda Triangle’ like Amelia Earhart. And you won’t see him on any milk cartons as you have your morning cereal.

He’s not missing. In fact, he’s alive and well.

“No, no, he’s not being held hostage in Mexico,” said his co-manager Sergio Diaz on Wednesday afternoon, laughing off the rumors. “Tony’s been out; he was on vacation, a two week vacation. The unfortunate thing is I left for China and wasn’t able to talk with Tony until he actually got back from vacation. When I got back from China, Tony had just left. So we could just never get together when he got back. That’s when we sat down to discuss the fight.”

Diaz and his partner, Francisco Espinoza, crossed the border on Monday and met with their fighter on Monday to discuss a possible bout with Shane Mosley.

“HBO made their offer,” said Diaz. “The offer just didn’t set well with all of us, the promoter, the fighter, the management. We still sat down, we spoke about it, and we still wanted to move forward with it. But when it came down to it, it’s just not enough. It just wasn’t enough. Yeah, it’s Shane Mosley, but he had more of a name seven years ago. So Antonio really decided that he just wanted to move forward without Mosley and look for a bigger fight.”

HBO was said to have offered a license fee of around $4 million for that matchup, which was to be split among the two sides at Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions. Margarito is said to have balked at having to take a 50-50 split with Mosley.
“If that is the question, I think he does have a valid point,” conceded Todd duBoef, president of Top Rank. “He was at the Mayorga fight and I told Richard Schaefer this, he saw that the biggest applause was when he walked in the arena - and there were very few people in the arena - and he probably thinks that the value for his services are much greater than Shane Mosley’s.”

The Mosley-Mayorga fight, which was held at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California on September 27th, was a financial disaster for Golden Boy Promotions, while Margarito is coming off a promotion with Miguel Cotto that did around a half-million pay-per-view buys.

But on the flipside, regardless of the purse split, $2 million still represents a career-high payday for Margarito and it was he and his management that stirred things up with some verbal volleys in Mosley’s direction. Also, in this economic climate, it just doesn’t look kosher to be eschewing large paydays, especially for a fighter who appealed to ‘Jose the Plumber’ with his down-to-earth, blue-collar ethic.

Diaz admits, “Yes, we’re thinking about the backlash we might get, but Antonio has always been a blue-collar worker, he’s always been a fighter, he’s always fought to get to a point where he can make a little bit of money. We’re in a bad economy and Antonio does understand that. But he would rather wait and hope for a bigger fight.”

And that bigger fight seems to be a rematch with Cotto, who is slated to return in February against either Jesus Soto-Karass or Michael Jennings.

“I know factually that the Cotto camp wants that fight and I assume that the Margarito camp wants that fight,” said duBoef. “It was a great fight for the sport, it was a great event and I think that that fight has some very good merits of that rematch happening later on.”

The question is, will Margarito have a fight in the interim before that? As the months go by, the momentum and goodwill from July 26th continues to fade away.

“We’re hoping it doesn’t go that far,” Diaz says of his fighter’s layoff. “We are hoping that Top Rank could fight us sooner. I just spoke with Todd and he said they would get to work on finding us something. It’s going to be a lot better for the promotion if both fighters fought on different cards and met in June. It’s going to be a big fight between a Puerto Rican and Mexican. But we’re hoping we will fight before that. It’s only going to help out the event for June.”

Top Rank would like for Margarito to co-headline a show in Mexico alongside Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., but if he’s not willing to face Mosley for $2 million, what are the chances that he’ll accept a tune-up for $750,000?

When it’s all said and done, if he decides to sit and wait on the return bout with Cotto, the person he’s hurting the most is himself - not only from a prizefighting standpoint, but from the viewpoint of marketing.

Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.

“As a promoter you can’t agree or disagree with what somebody wants to do. You can only give them the opportunity. And we gave him the opportunity for the fight. What his evaluation on the fight is, or what he thinks it’s worth and what his long-term agenda is in his head is not necessarily ours. So I think we explored the possible matchup and it’s just not working in the cards for him,” stated duBoef.

But the manager insists that everyone is still on the same wavelength when it comes to the career of ‘the Tijuana Tornado’.

“We’re all on the same page in regards to this Mosley fight and what we can get in the future before a Cotto rematch. Yes, we’re all on the same page.”

A NEW WORLD

There’s no doubt about it, everyone is tightening their belts - even HBO. It wasn’t that long ago that they put up around $3 million for stinkers like Winky Wright-Sam Soliman and then over $6 million just seven months ago for Joe Calzaghe-Bernard Hopkins. Then you had all the Floyd Mayweather and Roy Jones mismatches of the past that routinely fetched $3-4 million license fees.

It’s a shame that Margarito-Mosley couldn’t be consummated. This is the caliber of fight - at least on paper - that HBO once had on a regular basis during their heyday.

But it’s a brand new world out there economically. If fighters like Margarito don’t realize that, then they’ll soon find out that the business will move on without them. The days of fighters like Wright being bailed out (when he turned down a huge payday - between 4-5 million - for the rematch against Taylor because he couldn’t get a 50-50 split and was then given Ike Quartey for a couple million instead) are long gone.

kikibalt wrote:Margarito vs Mosley Canceled
November 20, 2008 by Edgar Gonzalez


By Steve Kim,
Contrary to some internet rumors that were floating around, Antonio Margarito was not kidnapped in Tijuana by a gang of bandits holding him for ransom. Nor was he was buried underneath the Meadowlands of New Jersey next to Jimmy Hoffa. He didn’t disappear into ‘the Bermuda Triangle’ like Amelia Earhart. And you won’t see him on any milk cartons as you have your morning cereal.

He’s not missing. In fact, he’s alive and well.

“No, no, he’s not being held hostage in Mexico,” said his co-manager Sergio Diaz on Wednesday afternoon, laughing off the rumors. “Tony’s been out; he was on vacation, a two week vacation. The unfortunate thing is I left for China and wasn’t able to talk with Tony until he actually got back from vacation. When I got back from China, Tony had just left. So we could just never get together when he got back. That’s when we sat down to discuss the fight.”

Diaz and his partner, Francisco Espinoza, crossed the border on Monday and met with their fighter on Monday to discuss a possible bout with Shane Mosley.

“HBO made their offer,” said Diaz. “The offer just didn’t set well with all of us, the promoter, the fighter, the management. We still sat down, we spoke about it, and we still wanted to move forward with it. But when it came down to it, it’s just not enough. It just wasn’t enough. Yeah, it’s Shane Mosley, but he had more of a name seven years ago. So Antonio really decided that he just wanted to move forward without Mosley and look for a bigger fight.”

HBO was said to have offered a license fee of around $4 million for that matchup, which was to be split among the two sides at Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions. Margarito is said to have balked at having to take a 50-50 split with Mosley.
“If that is the question, I think he does have a valid point,” conceded Todd duBoef, president of Top Rank. “He was at the Mayorga fight and I told Richard Schaefer this, he saw that the biggest applause was when he walked in the arena - and there were very few people in the arena - and he probably thinks that the value for his services are much greater than Shane Mosley’s.”

The Mosley-Mayorga fight, which was held at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California on September 27th, was a financial disaster for Golden Boy Promotions, while Margarito is coming off a promotion with Miguel Cotto that did around a half-million pay-per-view buys.

But on the flipside, regardless of the purse split, $2 million still represents a career-high payday for Margarito and it was he and his management that stirred things up with some verbal volleys in Mosley’s direction. Also, in this economic climate, it just doesn’t look kosher to be eschewing large paydays, especially for a fighter who appealed to ‘Jose the Plumber’ with his down-to-earth, blue-collar ethic.

Diaz admits, “Yes, we’re thinking about the backlash we might get, but Antonio has always been a blue-collar worker, he’s always been a fighter, he’s always fought to get to a point where he can make a little bit of money. We’re in a bad economy and Antonio does understand that. But he would rather wait and hope for a bigger fight.”

And that bigger fight seems to be a rematch with Cotto, who is slated to return in February against either Jesus Soto-Karass or Michael Jennings.

“I know factually that the Cotto camp wants that fight and I assume that the Margarito camp wants that fight,” said duBoef. “It was a great fight for the sport, it was a great event and I think that that fight has some very good merits of that rematch happening later on.”

The question is, will Margarito have a fight in the interim before that? As the months go by, the momentum and goodwill from July 26th continues to fade away.

“We’re hoping it doesn’t go that far,” Diaz says of his fighter’s layoff. “We are hoping that Top Rank could fight us sooner. I just spoke with Todd and he said they would get to work on finding us something. It’s going to be a lot better for the promotion if both fighters fought on different cards and met in June. It’s going to be a big fight between a Puerto Rican and Mexican. But we’re hoping we will fight before that. It’s only going to help out the event for June.”

Top Rank would like for Margarito to co-headline a show in Mexico alongside Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., but if he’s not willing to face Mosley for $2 million, what are the chances that he’ll accept a tune-up for $750,000?

When it’s all said and done, if he decides to sit and wait on the return bout with Cotto, the person he’s hurting the most is himself - not only from a prizefighting standpoint, but from the viewpoint of marketing.

Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.

“As a promoter you can’t agree or disagree with what somebody wants to do. You can only give them the opportunity. And we gave him the opportunity for the fight. What his evaluation on the fight is, or what he thinks it’s worth and what his long-term agenda is in his head is not necessarily ours. So I think we explored the possible matchup and it’s just not working in the cards for him,” stated duBoef.

But the manager insists that everyone is still on the same wavelength when it comes to the career of ‘the Tijuana Tornado’.

“We’re all on the same page in regards to this Mosley fight and what we can get in the future before a Cotto rematch. Yes, we’re all on the same page.”

A NEW WORLD

There’s no doubt about it, everyone is tightening their belts - even HBO. It wasn’t that long ago that they put up around $3 million for stinkers like Winky Wright-Sam Soliman and then over $6 million just seven months ago for Joe Calzaghe-Bernard Hopkins. Then you had all the Floyd Mayweather and Roy Jones mismatches of the past that routinely fetched $3-4 million license fees.

It’s a shame that Margarito-Mosley couldn’t be consummated. This is the caliber of fight - at least on paper - that HBO once had on a regular basis during their heyday.

But it’s a brand new world out there economically. If fighters like Margarito don’t realize that, then they’ll soon find out that the business will move on without them. The days of fighters like Wright being bailed out (when he turned down a huge payday - between 4-5 million - for the rematch against Taylor because he couldn’t get a 50-50 split and was then given Ike Quartey for a couple million instead) are long gone.

Tony's people made a bad move with this one. Yeh,everyone is tightening up. Tony needs to fight again. He could take Shane,pocket 2 mil,and move on. Who does he have to worry about if he stays sharp? If he takes too much time between fights,that's what takes the drive out of a fighter.

Christ,he could fight a bunch of lesser guys for 750 grand and do that every 3 months. This kid needs to stay active,or he'll lose his edge and not make the dough.

dagosd2000 wrote:

kikibalt wrote:Margarito vs Mosley Canceled
November 20, 2008 by Edgar Gonzalez


By Steve Kim,
Contrary to some internet rumors that were floating around, Antonio Margarito was not kidnapped in Tijuana by a gang of bandits holding him for ransom. Nor was he was buried underneath the Meadowlands of New Jersey next to Jimmy Hoffa. He didn’t disappear into ‘the Bermuda Triangle’ like Amelia Earhart. And you won’t see him on any milk cartons as you have your morning cereal.

He’s not missing. In fact, he’s alive and well.

“No, no, he’s not being held hostage in Mexico,” said his co-manager Sergio Diaz on Wednesday afternoon, laughing off the rumors. “Tony’s been out; he was on vacation, a two week vacation. The unfortunate thing is I left for China and wasn’t able to talk with Tony until he actually got back from vacation. When I got back from China, Tony had just left. So we could just never get together when he got back. That’s when we sat down to discuss the fight.”

Diaz and his partner, Francisco Espinoza, crossed the border on Monday and met with their fighter on Monday to discuss a possible bout with Shane Mosley.

“HBO made their offer,” said Diaz. “The offer just didn’t set well with all of us, the promoter, the fighter, the management. We still sat down, we spoke about it, and we still wanted to move forward with it. But when it came down to it, it’s just not enough. It just wasn’t enough. Yeah, it’s Shane Mosley, but he had more of a name seven years ago. So Antonio really decided that he just wanted to move forward without Mosley and look for a bigger fight.”

HBO was said to have offered a license fee of around $4 million for that matchup, which was to be split among the two sides at Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions. Margarito is said to have balked at having to take a 50-50 split with Mosley.
“If that is the question, I think he does have a valid point,” conceded Todd duBoef, president of Top Rank. “He was at the Mayorga fight and I told Richard Schaefer this, he saw that the biggest applause was when he walked in the arena - and there were very few people in the arena - and he probably thinks that the value for his services are much greater than Shane Mosley’s.”

The Mosley-Mayorga fight, which was held at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California on September 27th, was a financial disaster for Golden Boy Promotions, while Margarito is coming off a promotion with Miguel Cotto that did around a half-million pay-per-view buys.

But on the flipside, regardless of the purse split, $2 million still represents a career-high payday for Margarito and it was he and his management that stirred things up with some verbal volleys in Mosley’s direction. Also, in this economic climate, it just doesn’t look kosher to be eschewing large paydays, especially for a fighter who appealed to ‘Jose the Plumber’ with his down-to-earth, blue-collar ethic.

Diaz admits, “Yes, we’re thinking about the backlash we might get, but Antonio has always been a blue-collar worker, he’s always been a fighter, he’s always fought to get to a point where he can make a little bit of money. We’re in a bad economy and Antonio does understand that. But he would rather wait and hope for a bigger fight.”

And that bigger fight seems to be a rematch with Cotto, who is slated to return in February against either Jesus Soto-Karass or Michael Jennings.

“I know factually that the Cotto camp wants that fight and I assume that the Margarito camp wants that fight,” said duBoef. “It was a great fight for the sport, it was a great event and I think that that fight has some very good merits of that rematch happening later on.”

The question is, will Margarito have a fight in the interim before that? As the months go by, the momentum and goodwill from July 26th continues to fade away.

“We’re hoping it doesn’t go that far,” Diaz says of his fighter’s layoff. “We are hoping that Top Rank could fight us sooner. I just spoke with Todd and he said they would get to work on finding us something. It’s going to be a lot better for the promotion if both fighters fought on different cards and met in June. It’s going to be a big fight between a Puerto Rican and Mexican. But we’re hoping we will fight before that. It’s only going to help out the event for June.”

Top Rank would like for Margarito to co-headline a show in Mexico alongside Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., but if he’s not willing to face Mosley for $2 million, what are the chances that he’ll accept a tune-up for $750,000?

When it’s all said and done, if he decides to sit and wait on the return bout with Cotto, the person he’s hurting the most is himself - not only from a prizefighting standpoint, but from the viewpoint of marketing.

Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.

“As a promoter you can’t agree or disagree with what somebody wants to do. You can only give them the opportunity. And we gave him the opportunity for the fight. What his evaluation on the fight is, or what he thinks it’s worth and what his long-term agenda is in his head is not necessarily ours. So I think we explored the possible matchup and it’s just not working in the cards for him,” stated duBoef.

But the manager insists that everyone is still on the same wavelength when it comes to the career of ‘the Tijuana Tornado’.

“We’re all on the same page in regards to this Mosley fight and what we can get in the future before a Cotto rematch. Yes, we’re all on the same page.”

A NEW WORLD

There’s no doubt about it, everyone is tightening their belts - even HBO. It wasn’t that long ago that they put up around $3 million for stinkers like Winky Wright-Sam Soliman and then over $6 million just seven months ago for Joe Calzaghe-Bernard Hopkins. Then you had all the Floyd Mayweather and Roy Jones mismatches of the past that routinely fetched $3-4 million license fees.

It’s a shame that Margarito-Mosley couldn’t be consummated. This is the caliber of fight - at least on paper - that HBO once had on a regular basis during their heyday.

But it’s a brand new world out there economically. If fighters like Margarito don’t realize that, then they’ll soon find out that the business will move on without them. The days of fighters like Wright being bailed out (when he turned down a huge payday - between 4-5 million - for the rematch against Taylor because he couldn’t get a 50-50 split and was then given Ike Quartey for a couple million instead) are long gone.

Tony's people made a bad move with this one. Yeh,everyone is tightening up. Tony needs to fight again. He could take Shane,pocket 2 mil,and move on. Who does he have to worry about if he stays sharp? If he takes too much time between fights,that's what takes the drive out of a fighter.

Christ,he could fight a bunch of lesser guys for 750 grand and do that every 3 months. This kid needs to stay active,or he'll lose his edge and not make the dough.

I agree, Rog. For Margarito it was a chance to pocket 2 mil for a high profile tune up fight. He would have stayed busy and kept the rust off. For Mosley, it would have been the end of a well traveled road.

kikibalt wrote:Photo by Rick Farris


Rick and Monica Farris

Beautiful, gracious and generous. Both of you!

Randyman wrote:
Former Light Heavyweight Champion Marvin Johnson and wife
2008 World Boxing Hall of Fame Inductee



Former Heavyweight Champion Lennox Lewis and wife
2008 World Boxing Hall of Fame Inductee

Lewis was in the middle of a great big yawn just seconds before I shot this photo. I waited a second and then he saw me with my camera and straightened up. He almost looked embarrassed. I didn't have the heart. Maybe I should have.

A fight that should have happened in the early 1990's is Lennox Lewis vs Riddick Bowe. Before Bowe fell apart he was a pretty damned good fighter. A fight between these two would have been huge. Too bad it never happened. I heard Bowe's making a comeback, at 41 years of age. Hmmm

Reading the Margarito article, it seem to me that Margarito is calling the shots, what is he paying his managers for? when my boys were fighting, I, and I along did the negotiating, the boys were not in the room as I negotiated, after I made a deal, I would tell them, "you're fighting so and so, on so and so date, and this is what you're getting paid", this is what a manager is for, to negotiate, the manager takes care of business and the fighter does the fighting, I bet nobody told old Mel how to negotiate.

Photo by Dan Hanley Jr.



Pop Hanley and Gaspar "Indio" Ortega

Randyman wrote:

kikibalt wrote:Photo by Rick Farris


Rick and Monica Farris

Beautiful, gracious and generous. Both of you!

Rick
What a beautifull lady you have,inside and out. You have the real goods there with Monica. Rog

kikibalt wrote:Reading the Margarito article, it seem to me that Margarito is calling the shots, what is he paying his managers for? when my boys were fighting, I, and I along did the negotiating, the boys were not in the room as I negotiated, after I made a deal, I would tell them, "you're fighting so and so, on so and so date, and this is what you're getting paid", this is what a manager is for, to negotiate, the manager takes care of business and the fighter does the fighting, I bet nobody told old Mel how to negotiate.

Interesting point Frank.

Another thing I was thinking on Margarito. I've seen his place in the Zona Norte. It isn't exactly the Ritz. He likes living in Mexico. If he's happy where he's living in TJ(Zona Norte),well he's content with not having all the cars and the yacht. The Zona Norte is a barrio. For the kind of money he could make,Tony could move by the Racetrack. The homes there are posh. Shit,he could do that now. You can really make your money stretch in Mexico. I hope he straightens out. And I hope he starts fighting again.