To (very loosely) paraphrase Bono introducing “Helter Skelter” on the Rattle & Hum album: This is a column device that Bill Simmons stole from Norman Chad, and I’m stealing it back.
I haven’t written a pay-per-view running diary in about 13 or 14 years, since I was filing weekly online columns for The Ring, but the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez-Edgar Berlanga pay-per-view, plus the Prime Video preshow — seven fights spread across some 6½ hours — presented a fine opportunity to get the gang back together and give the running diary another shot.
The “gang” I was getting back together consisted of two of my oldest friends in boxing (dual meaning intentional), Nigel Collins and Bill Dettloff, both of whom live a drivable distance from me in suburban Pennsylvania. At least that was the plan; Nigel had to bail on short notice, and Bill has never been what you’d call punctual. So, for much of the night, it was just me, my TV tuned in to PPV.com, my diary, and my dog Otis Dumbledore Raskin, who is at best a boxing casual.
Not exactly helter skelter. Unlike the last time I wrote one of these, I’m middle aged now. What do you expect?
On to the running diary (all times Eastern):
6:01 p.m.: We’re on the air! Brian Custer’s suit jacket with the narrow blue stripes vaguely reminds me of Larry David’s jacket from the “Krazee-Eyez Killa” episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. By the way, if you’re in Vegas for a fight week and staying at the same hotel as Custer, and you go to the hotel gym, you will bump into Brian there, without fail.
6:03: Ring announcer Miguel Flores is introducing the first fight, Jonathan “Geo” Lopez vs. Ricky Medina, and the on-screen chyrons say they each have records of 24-0 (17 KOs). Neither actually has a record of 24-0 (17 KOs). This will become a theme as the Prime production team apparently continues to work out the kinks.
6:05: The opening bell rings, and we get our first look at the main event betting odds courtesy of sponsor DraftKings. (Alvarez is -1800, Berlanga is +1000.) I placed a four-leg parlay bet earlier in the day, for a highly insignificant amount of money, just to have a little something to sweat during the card: Stephen Fulton to defeat Carlos Castro, Caleb Plant to defeat Trevor McCumby, Erislandy Lara vs. Danny Garcia to go the distance, and Canelo to beat Berlanga by KO/TKO/DQ. The odds came out to +145. Rooting for a win so I can retire from boxing writing.
6:23: Lopez is clearly a talented prospect and has been dominating the fight to this point, but a head clash opens a cut on the outside corner of his right eye in the fifth round, creating a hint of possible adversity (and an excuse after the round for the cameras to zoom in on a Q-tip being shoved into a hole in a head, one of my least favorite features of watching boxing).
6:27: Washed Raskin lets out his first yawn of the night — this despite successfully napping from about 4-4:30. Meanwhile, I’m trading WhatsApp messages with BoxingScene’s own Kieran Mulvaney, who is ringside in Vegas, since my in-person boxing friends aren’t here yet and Otis can’t be bothered to watch 8-rounders deep on undercards with me.
6:36: After hurting Medina along the ropes at the very end of the seventh round, Lopez scores a knockdown with 40 seconds left in the eighth off a sick combination ending with a straight left hand. But Medina toughs it out, and a couple of minutes later, Lopez is announced the winner by 80-71 scores on all cards. An impressive win for Lopez even without a KO ending, and a perfectly fine loss for Media.
6:41: The broadcast gives us a highlight reel of Canelo at the pre-fight pressers, which is mostly a supercut of him dropping F-bombs. Custer afterward: “Tell you what, Canelo’s cursing in English is really good.” I couldn’t agree more. I could listen to him say “fuck,” “fucking,” or “motherfucker” all day long.
6:42: Roiman Villa has added several new tattoos since the last time I saw him. He’s running out of real estate, Gervonta Davis-style.
6:49: How fun have the first couple of rounds of Villa vs. Ricardo Salas been? Color analyst Abner Mares says the words “Corrales-Castillo” early in the second round. It’s probably not quite warranted, but still, always a good sign about the pace and action of a fight.
6:55: From out of nowhere, underdog Salas lands a fantastic short right hand, and then a left before Villa’s body was able to fall, and that body crumples. It’s all over in the third round, and Villa, inactive for 14 months following his defeat to Jaron “Boots” Ennis, is suddenly in a very different phase of his career. I’m glad I resisted the urge to include Villa in my parlay.
7:02: Villa isn’t the only boxer coming off a loss and a long layoff sporting new tattoos. As he readies to take on Castro, Fulton reveals a big splash of ink across his abdomen that says “CAN’TBESTOPPED.” It’s a bold choice considering the last time Fulton fought, Naoya Inoue stopped him. I guess he deemed “WON’TBESTOPPEDAGAIN” a little too wordy. Oh, by the way, the chyrons are telling us both fighters are 24-0 (17 KOs).
7:18: Four rounds into what is clearly a tough comeback matchup for our Philly homeboy Fulton, Nigel sends me an email that he can’t make it over for the PPV. My kids have a running joke (a joke rooted in truth) that I have no friends. This PPV party is largely proving them right.
7:22: Castro lands a big counter right hand, and Fulton is down! He dusts himself off, but there is a theme developing here with fighters returning from layoffs and KO losses and apparently picking the wrong opponents. That said, despite my sense watching but not scoring carefully that Fulton is surely behind in the fight after suffering a knockdown, I see that broadcaster Joe Goossen gave each of the first four rounds to “Cool Boy Steph.”
7:33: Castro hurts Fulton again in the eighth round with another right hand, though the -800 pre-fight favorite doesn’t go down this time. Also, somebody somewhere within earshot of my house is lighting fireworks for reasons unknown. If you’re a dog owner, you know: This is not ideal. Otis runs down from upstairs, into the living room, and jumps up on the couch, frightened by the fireworks. Or maybe he just wants to see the last couple of rounds of Fulton-Castro.
7:41: The last round is underway, and without a formal scorecard my sense is that Fulton is probably narrowly behind, but Goossen’s card suggests otherwise. Whatever the score, Fulton has his best round, and if the fight was up for grabs, he clearly grabbed it.
7:46: Flores reads the decision: 95-94 Castro, 96-93 Fulton, and 95-94 Fulton — indeed, he won the fight in the final round. And the parlay is still alive! The crowd is booing, however.
7:48: One of the weirder Jim Gray questions, to Fulton after the fight: “How much rust do you think you had?” Fulton seems puzzled by the question and repeats it back, “How much rust?” I would have been interested to hear him offer a quantitative answer. “Well, Jim, glad you asked. I would say … three-point-five. Three-point-five rust units.”
7:49: Actual quote from Fulton, as the interview ends: “Shoutout to the boos, too.” He has a certain charm, no doubt about it. It’s fair, however, to question Fulton’s ceiling as a fighter at this point. There’s no shame in losing to Inoue, nor in winning so narrowly against Castro and Brandon Figueroa. But he just doesn’t seem to have the pop in his mitts needed to discourage his better opponents. I wouldn’t be shocked if, at 30 years old, and now fighting at featherweight, we’ve already seen the best of Stephen Fulton.
7:50: The sound is beginning to drop out on the Prime stream. I’m just going to shut it off, take a 10-minute break, and pick it up on PPV.com at the top of the hour.
8:00: The pay-per-view broadcast is officially underway, no guests are here, and wife and kids are all out (though on their way home). This is quite possibly the lamest PPV party ever. What’s the opposite of helter skelter? Well, I’m not waiting for Bill to arrive to crack open a drink. I unscrew the cap on a Mike’s Hard Limeade. Yep — somehow I just made my PPV party even lamer.
8:08: Mares refers to Danny Garcia’s left hook at the “Philly special.” I like Abner, but he has committed Philadelphia sports blasphemy.
8:10: Ringwalks are underway for Rolly Romero vs. Manuel Jaimes (I’ll let you guess their on-screen records). I consider this acceptable pacing — boxers making their way to the ring 10 minutes into the telecast. Any more than that, and I start getting pissy. Once the fighters are in the ring, the camera pans across the “crowd” at T-Mobile Arena. Reminder to directors and camera operators: Never pan like that in Vegas until at least the co-feature.
8:30: Watching replays of Romero’s legs going all funky against Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz never gets old.
8:48: Rolly is doing a fine job of taking a half-step back and walking Jaimes into counter right uppercuts. He’s landing bombs with both hands, but he doesn’t seem to be hurting his man at all. This isn’t a terrible fight, but it’s not an entertaining one either. Before long, Jimmy Lennon Jr. is reading unanimous scores of 99-91 for Romero.
8:57: We see an ad for a new Hulu scripted series about boxing called La Maquina. Oh, David Diamante plays the ring announcer. I’m out.
9:01: Bill shows up! I have a friend! Take that, family! Caleb Plant and Trevor McCumby are just about to make their way to the ring.
9:04: Dettloff makes an immediate impact on the running diary, saying of the mustachioed underdog, “Trevor McCumby looks like she should be tying a damsel in distress to a railroad track.” He also observes that “Trevor McCumby” sounds like a Simpsons name.
9:09: McCumby removes his hat and we get a good look at his mullet. Dettloff: “This might be the first time Plant has had a better haircut than his opponent.”
9:17: This is not proving as easy for -1400 favorite Plant as expected, and at the end of the second round, he goes down from a clash of heads. Referee Alan Huggins correctly rules no knockdown, but Plant is clearly buzzed and is not granted extra time to recover.
9:24: Mauro Ranallo gives a free plug to the “Daily Bread Mailbag,” a feature right here on BoxingScene via Plant’s trainer Stephen “Breadman” Edwards. Moments later, in round four, Plant suffers an official knockdown. McCumby landed a shot to the arm that knocked him off balance and down. Does Plant have a glass arm?
9:29: Plant makes a brilliant tactical adjustment, moving the fight to close quarters, where he can smother McCumby, not let him get any leverage on his shots, and get the better of the action with his faster fists. Bonus points to Plant for a Three Stooges-esque straight-arm move that leaves McCumby swinging at air.
9:33: Members of my family are home and my son Eli joins the party, though he’s mildly turned off by Bill and I communicating almost exclusively in Seinfeld references. Eli has little to add to that, or to our discussion of the new Sopranos documentary, but he is able to weigh in when Bill brings up The Shawshank Redemption, one of Eli’s favorite movies.
9:46: Plant hurts McCumby along the ropes, landing one heavy shot after another as McCumby’s body sags, and Huggins steps in — a perfectly timed stoppage in my view, although in real time Dettloff thought otherwise because the round was almost over. (Indeed, the stoppage came at 2:59 of the ninth.) Bill starts talking about Plant’s haircut and means to joke that it looks like he uses a flowbee, but instead Bill asks if he uses a “Flo Jo.” Yeah, he cuts his hair with a 1980s track-and-field star. My friends and I are all so hopelessly washed.
10:10: Lara vs. Garcia is underway — we have a theoretical shot here to get the main event in the ring by 11 p.m. (But not if this goes the distance and keeps my parlay wager alive.) I observe that Garcia is looking more and more like Ali G as he ages.
10:18: We’re into round 3, and according to CompuBox, Garcia has landed four punches. This fight is living down to all of our lowest possible expectations. Bill mentions that he was once interviewing Goossen over the phone and referred to Erislandy Lara as “Erislara Landy.” At least Bill didn’t ask Goossen if he cuts his hair with a Flo-Jo.
10:44: At the tail end of the ninth round, Garcia absorbs the first knockdown of his career, a left hand from Lara doing the damage. He goes back to his corner, where his father/trainer Angel Garcia is immediately indicating to the ref that it’s over. And my parlay is blown. I will not be retiring from boxing writing. Outstanding observation from Mares: “That was not a coach in that corner, that was a dad worried about his son.”
10:48: Gray asks Garcia if this will be the last time we see him in boxing, and he doesn’t have any answers on the spot, but my hunch is it will be. Meanwhile, how about Lara, still going strong at 41? While Garcia strikes me as one or two good wins short of the Hall of Fame, Lara’s longevity is making him at least a live ‘dog for induction someday.
11:33: The opening bell rings for the main event. So … 49 minutes passed between the end of the co-main and the start of Alvarez-Berlanga. It didn’t feel that long, but, there’s no reason they can’t strive to trim about 10 minutes off that next time.
11:34: Berlanga is absolutely massive. The size gap between him and Canelo looks almost as dramatic as Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk. Despite my column the other day noting legacy-building options for Canelo at light heavyweight and cruiserweight, there’s a fine case to be made that he ought to just stay at 168 the rest of his career.
11:38: In round 2, Canelo feints a left hook, then lands a right to the body, then comes back up with a left hook. Berlanga is falling for all the feints. The challenger appears game and fearless but my insistence from the first moment this fight was mooted that the skill gap would be enormous is feeling well-founded.
11:42: And I’m feeling even more confident when Canelo drops Berlanga with a lightning-fast left hook in the third — although the New Yorker is fine, banging his gloves together in frustration at his mistake as he sits on the canvas. As Alvarez tries to finish, he’s getting a little sloppy and giving Berlanga openings. But one thing that has been true of Canelo every day of his boxing life since he escaped the Jose Miguel Cotto fight 14 years ago is that he has always demonstrated 100 per cent confidence in his chin.
11:50: Both men are throwing hip punches as ref Harvey Dock tries to break them, and soon Dock slips and falls. It’s getting chippy, but it’s been fun. As one-sided fights go, this one is quite engaging.
11:54: Berlanga lands a 1-2, the right hand on the end his best punch of the fight so far, but Alvarez takes it without any difficulty. “Canelo’s not going to stop him,” Dettloff says. “It’s going to be like the [Jaime] Munguia fight.”
11:58: We all marvel at how visibly Canelo is balding as we catch an overhead shot of him with his hair wet. Bill soon recalls fondly the days of John-John Molina fighting Oscar De La Hoya wearing some sort of toupee.
12:02: Dock warns Berlanga for a headbutt, and indeed, that was blatant. This is not entirely out of character for him — recall that Berlanga got frustrated and bit an opponent a few years ago. Meanwhile, Canelo seems to have stolen Gennady Golovkin’s downward-chopping power punch and worked it into his arsenal. I don’t recall seeing him employ that before.
12:08: After nine rounds, the odds have Canelo -230 to win by decision and +160 to win by knockout. He was -290 to win by knockout before the opening bell. Mares must have bet the knockout, because he’s encouraging Berlanga’s corner to stop the fight and save him more punishment — misplaced concern, if you ask me.
12:12: After hearing the 10-second clap, Alvarez walks away thinking the round is over and Berlanga smartly blasts him with a left hook. What a story that would have been if he’d knocked Canelo out with that.
12:17: Berlanga is showboating as the final round begins and then proceeds to land some of his best punches of the fight. I gotta say, he’s earned my respect. I sold him short. I was correct that he had no realistic path to victory, but he was not as outclassed skill-wise as I expected, and he was as gutsy as anyone could have asked him to be.
12:20: Berlanga has earned Canelo’s respect too. What a tremendous hug and show of mutual admiration at the final bell. As weird as this is to say, Alvarez and Berlanga had fun in there. As the hug carries on for a good 60 seconds or so, Dettloff tells them to get a room.
12:24: Alvarez, having been declared the victor by scores of 117-110 and 118-109 twice (I don’t see how a judge found three rounds to give Berlanga, but that’s immaterial), is interviewed by Gray while some Teen Wolf-looking guy is holding up a giant red belt behind him. Perhaps I’ve fallen asleep on the couch and don’t realize it. Alvarez says, “I’m the best fighter in the world.” No, not anymore. Not for the last couple of years. But, at age 34, you’re still right up there in the top five or so. And while there’s evidence that Canelo is past his absolute peak, there’s no evidence that the end is near. Hopefully we can enjoy this show for at least a couple more years. And hopefully we can enjoy it against opponents who come in closer to 50-50 on the odds board.
12:31: Dettloff leaves. Otis empties his bladder. I’m retiring for the night — with a record of 24-0 (17 KOs).
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, Ringside Seat, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X or LinkedIn, or via email at [email protected].
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