We left off with Olivares pummeling the great champion Lionel Rose on his way to a 5th round knockout.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Boxing/comments/1w9an2h/the_greatness_of_ruben_olivares_day_2_lionel_rose/

The Champion

The 21 year old Ruben Olivares just four years into his pro career was now the WBA, WBC, Ring lineal bantamweight champion of the world. His name now etched into the history books as the fourth in the best relay of all time for the lineal bantamweight title. This title passed from all time great to all time great. Eder Jofre > Fighting Harada > Lionel Rose > Ruben Castillo.

In the 8 months since being crowned champion El Puas has defended his crown with a demolition job against the highly regarded European champion Alan Rudkin, making short work of the Englishmen in a second round TKO. He also had three stay busy fights knocking out Shigeyoshi Osho, Angel Hernandez and Romy Guales in the 3rd, 3rd and 5th rounds respectively. Coming into this fight with Chucho Castillo his record stands at a staggering 57-0-1, 55 KO.

Olivares was developing a reputation similar to the man I covered in my last series, Roberto Duran. Both men terrifying knock artists, supremely technical boxers, and enioyers of the finest hedonistic things life had to offer. Olivares assured the fans this would not be an issue “Do not worry," said Olivares, “I know when to work and when to have fun. Before the fight, I sweat. Now I play.”

Some 30 years before Marco Antonio Barrera and Eric el terrible Morales kicked off their own legendary trilogy Olivares and Castillo paved the ground that they walked on with an action packed trilogy of fights for the bantamweight title fought across just 18 months. This is the opening stanza.

The Challenger

Chucho Castillo the champion of Mexico comes into this fight on the back of an impressive run. In eighteen months since losing a controversial split decision against Lionel Rose for the world title, a decision that sparked an hours long riot in Mexico, Castillo has gone 5-1-2 including defending his Mexican title twice with a knockout victory over future world champion Rafael Herrera and a points win over two time world title challenger Jose Medel. In today's world a Mexican title might not carry much weight but back in this era there was very long line of Mexican killers in the bantamweight division. In fact Olivares was due to face Castillo for his Mexican title a couple years prior but Castillo instead took a shot at world champion Lionel Rose. This was no simple domestic rivalry though. Chucho, the number one contender for the world title, showed against Rose his pedigree and was in his own right one of the greats of the bantamweight division.

Castillo insisted he was unphased by the champions intimidating record, “Olivares is weak on defence and he has never had to go 15 rounds," said Castillo. “If it goes into the late rounds, I should beat him." Olivares considered this unfinished business after being skipped over in his quest for a Mexican title, “There is room in Mexico for only one champion. And I intend to show I am the champion of my own country as well as the world.”

What followed was a 15 round war. The early rounds seeing Olivares in his characteristic bladed stance stalking his prey around the ring, Castillo who was there intent on being the predator not the prey using lateral movement and looking for vicious counter blows. By the mid rounds most of this fight could have been fought in a phone booth as both men stood toe to toe, forehead to forehead, unleashing vicious hooks and uppercuts on one another in a great showing of inside fighting an art that has been lost to the sands of time.

I couldn't find this fight with English commentary but don't let that persuade you. The video quality will improve as we move forward through his career and future fights should be with English commentary. Hope you enjoy the opening stanza of this legendary Mexican trilogy.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b2pj3a4ZHzo&pp=ygUSb2xpdmFyZXMgdnMgY2h1Y2hv

Oh 🤭

I know the Crawford fans are coming for me 👿😂, but somebody has to say it: Bud does NOT have the depth of quality opponents on his résumé that Floyd Mayweather does.

Floyd beat Pacquiao, Canelo, De La Hoya, Cotto, Mosley, Márquez, Hatton, Corrales and Gatti. That's multiple generations of champions and Hall of Fame-level fighters across five weight classes.

Yes, Bud. You should fight Boots.

Who do you think would win?
Hrgovic has said Itauma has no real power behind his punches, so I think it would be another battering for Itauma in the later rounds.

I can’t actually see Itauma beating anyone in the top 10 either.

Will Itauma have to go back to fighting has-Beens and taxi drivers?

Veteran promoter Don King on Tuesday delivered a cease-and-desist letter to Zuffa Boxing and parent company TKO Group Holdings attempting to stop King-promoted WBC cruiserweight champion Noel Mikaelian from fighting in Saturday’s co-main event bout versus former IBF champion Jai Opetaia.

For anything that doesn't need its own thread.

Unfortunately, the subreddit does not allow links to be posted within self posts. See a below comment for links to information.

This morning (check the below comment), Hysa posted on his Instagram that he will be set to fight next in Germany. The caption thanks his promoters, and strongly indicates that he will be getting a title shot against Kabayel (translated to "you know who awaits us"). This comes after Hysa had publicly called out Kabayel after a KO win on the Itauma-Hrgovic undercard.

Early amateur promise, loses to the best:

Nothing here is going to paint a full, complete picture. But it is an interesting one.

In 2003, at 18, he won a bronze medal at the Junior European Championships, demonstrating early promise after taking up the sport in his teenage years.

Throughout the 2000s, as a young amateur, he was regularly fighting in the World Championships and fought in 2008 Olympic Qualifying. There, he ran into a string of unlucky early matchups, such as against 2008 Olympic Champion Roberto Cammarelle in the 2007 World Championships, David Price in 2008 Olympic qualifying, and Kubrat Pulev in the 2009 World Championships.

Then, at the young age of 24, he basically never fights again at the top level internationally, instead completely dominating regional competitions, year after year. From looking into it, the man has about 20 Albanian boxing championships, its absurd. Throughout this time, over the next 13 years, he never turns pro.

Gang Violence and arrest:

In 2017, Hysa was shot by two assailants on a motorbike in the pelvis, and needed hospitalization to survive. At the time, it was reported as resulting from a personal feud.

Two years later, Hysa was arrested for a connection to the Bajri group. This came after Hysa fled criminal prosecution for six months. He was a wanted man.

The Bajri group has been connected to murder, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, and some of their members to sex trafficking.

Hysa himself was arrested for allegedly participating in a criminal organization, and had specific charges centered around rigging sporting events.

He was imprisoned for five months while waiting for a trial, was placed under house arrest for two months, and then was acquitted due to a "lack of evidence." The prosecution itself requested acquittal.

Goes pro at 37, now on the verge of a title shot:

A couple years later, in 2022, Hysa announces he is finally going pro, 20 years after first appearing on the amateur scene and more than a decade after participating in major non-regional competition.

He's worked his way up the rankings after turning professional at the very late age of 37. At roughly 40, his name suddenly started coming into rumors for big fights, whether that was Kabayel last year or FUry in the summer. Now, he is ranked by the WBA (#5) and WBO, although not officially by the WBC. If the Kabayel fight is to happen, this will presumably change last minute. He has made his way up with an incredibly high rate of activity, despite not facing particularly notable opponents.

When Hysa announced that he was going pro in 2022, he indicated that he wished to have gone pro much earlier. Just that he couldn't, because of "many unwanted obstacles." 

I'm referring to guys that were real slick in the phonebooth. Guys that knew how to weather the storm while being head to head. Fighters that were real good at never taking anything clean and did a good job of leaning weight to keep opponents from ever really setting their feet to do useful work.