LAS VEGAS – The rumor-mongering in boxing goes with the territory.
No double-sourcing. No editor’s scrutiny. As the whispers sift through the carousel of this wild sport, someone of refute may choose to spread gossip for the masses to consider.
That’s what happened at this week’s testy news conference starring unbeaten light-heavyweights David Benavidez and David Morrell, when a member of Benavidez’s camp alleged that Morrell had been knocked down in sparring.
A day later, many involved in the Morrell camp hotly disputed the claim as erroneous and a gross exaggeration of facts.
One of four Morrell sparring partners, Mexico’s Manuel Gallegos, told Morrell training camp coordinator Alex Bermudez that, “I was eating at the time when I heard it, and was so upset, I nearly choked on my food. It’s not true. I can’t believe someone in the boxing world would spread lies like that.”
To think that elite fighters aren’t keeping tabs on their rivals through various channels is to be naive beyond belief.
When Manny Pacquiao was preparing for Oscar De La Hoya, Team Pacquiao reviewed some HBO “24/7” footage showing De La Hoya was quite a bit over his weight limit with weeks to go in training.
They mailed De La Hoya a 12-pound cheesecake from New York’s famed Carnegie Deli that the “Golden Boy” angrily threw down the Big Bear road.
Floyd Mayweather Jnr got wind that Canelo Alvarez needed to wear plastic wrapping around his midsection to make weight for their 2013 showdown.
Gervonta “Tank” Davis informed Ryan Garcia that Garcia had an informant in his camp leaking information to Team Davis.
In this case, however, Team Morrell on Friday vehemently objected to the accuracy of the Team Benavidez reporting.
Bermudez told BoxingScene, “That affects the livelihoods of fighters like this, a kid from Mexico, a hard-working guy with a three-month-old. It’s completely false, and [Gallegos] told me, ‘I’m going online right now to debunk that, to clarify that never happened.’”
Being seen as a sparring snitch is viewed as one of the most deceitful acts in the sport, and it would blackball anyone linked to such behavior from collecting future sparring-session income.
“When things are falsely said, it puts these kids in a bad position,” Bermudez said. “Let’s say [the report of a knockdown] was true. Why would we ever call [him] back for sparring again? The guy is just trying to do his job. These lies try to take money out of that kid’s pocket. They’re [effectively] saying he said it … like who else would they get it from?”
Bermudez, Morrell promoter Leon Margules and the fighter’s advisor, Luis DeCubas Sr., explained that given the seriousness of Morrell’s challenge against former super-middleweight champion Benavidez 29-0 (24 KOs), they assembled a rigorous gathering of four sparring partners – Gallegos, WBA top-ranked middleweight Yoenli Feliciano Hernandez, Morrell’s August 3 opponent, Radivoje “Hot Rod” Kalajdzic, and Darius Fulghum 13-0 (11 KOs) – and instructed them to give Morrell their all.
Margules said the sparring partners were told, “Come in and kill him.”
DeCubas Snr personally supervised Morrell enduring an astounding 133 rounds of sparring from the quartet, and in one session, when Hernandez and Morrell were engaging in inside fighting, a shoulder or elbow caught Morrell on the face and resulted in a black eye.
“That’s sparring,” Bermudez said. “Everyone gets nicked.”
The sessions are actually the reason Team Morrell carries such great confidence into the bout that pits WBC interim champion Benavidez, 28, against Cuba’s WBA secondary champion Morrell 11-0 (9 KOs). Both fighters weighed in Friday at 174.2lbs.
“I was in camp the whole time, and [Morrell] never did [get dropped],” DeCubas said.
“I brought in Gallegos because I saw [his November 9 knockout of Khalil Coe]. He throws a lot of punches, is always on you. He was the first guy I thought about. We needed a big, strong, aggressive guy. A tough dude. He brought his trainer with him for six weeks. They knew they were coming to fight, that it’d be war in the gym. It was great work.
“I’m from the old school of boxing. Sparring is No. 1.”
Margules said DeCubas was calling him every day during camp, telling him how well the sparring battles were proceeding.
“It was the perfect camp,” Margules said.
Morrell, 27, called it his best training camp ever.
“Let’s harp on that,” Bermudez said.
DeCubas said testing Morrell against a headgear-wearing “Hot Rod,” against the fellow 6-foot-2 Cuban Hernandez, whom he calls “the best middleweight in the world,” and Fulghum was intended to prepare Morrell fully for the pressure and damage Benavidez intends to bring.
“When he got a shiner from an elbow, we started bringing the elbows down,” DeCubas said. “It’s sparring. What are you going to do? I got what I wanted in the 133 rounds.
“I wanted the sparring partners to make it like a fight. There’s no games here. You’ve gotta get hit. So Morrell did 10, 12 rounds, again and again.
“And by the last day, everything came together and Morrell looked like Ray Robinson in there. He really did.”
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.
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