On the one hand, Saturday night’s Sebastian Fundora vs. Keith Thurman card was not what one would consider a major pay-per-view, worthy of the running-diary-style treatment. Typically, it takes a huge name like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Manny Pacquiao or an all-day-long super-card to justify this column device.
On the other hand, it’s been more than eight months since the last running diary, and I had the itch – plus I had my boxing writing friends Nigel Collins and Bill Dettloff coming over, qualifying this as a pay-per-view party (at least by “middle-aged dad with hardly any friends left” standards).
And as a tiebreaker: I couldn’t come up with any better ideas for what to write about, and I have a column due.
So, PPV running diary it is!
5:24 p.m. ET: No, I won’t be firing up the PPV.com app until 8 p.m., but the diary starts a couple of hours before that, because I’ve just gotten home from an afternoon Bat Mitzvah and there’s already boxing on. We’re in the fourth round of the Gerome Warburton-Nathan Heaney fight on DAZN ahead of the Moses Itauma-Jermaine Franklin main event, plus the Amazon Prime Video prelims leading into the PPV will be starting in six minutes.
By the way, the Bat Mitzvah was fun. Thanks for asking. I had an alcoholic beverage before noon, something that probably hasn’t happened since before Fundora was born (but not quite before Thurman was born), but I cut myself off at one drink because this Bat Mitzvah was taking up the entirety of what would normally be my pre-PPV napping window, and I didn’t need to give my undiagnosed narcolepsy any extra advantages during the evening fight card.
5:38: I have the DAZN card on the TV but now add the Prime prelims on my phone, where we see Abner Mares standing next to Justin Goossen-Brown at ringside, and at least one of these three options must be true: Abner is under five feet tall, Goossen-Brown is over 6-foot-6 or Goossen-Brown is borrowing Sylvester Stallone’s lifts.
5:48: I have some chips and cookies set out for when my guests arrive, but I cave and bust open the container of Chips Ahoy Crunchy Chocolatey Caramel cookies before they get here. My review: meh. (So I’ll only eat about another 15 of them over the course of the night.)
5:53: Julian Gonzalez drops undefeated Kaipo Gallegos in the third round of the first Prime bout, and Gallegos is legit hurt and holding on. It seems an upset may be brewing.
6:04: Even though I have boxing on two screens, none of my guests have arrived and Otis the dog isn’t even hanging out with me, so I’m bored. To cope with the boredom, I place a small parlay wager: I’m taking Itauma by KO/TKO/DQ, Elijah Garcia over Kevin Newman II, Yoenis Tellez by decision over Brian Mendoza and Fundora to beat Thurman. It’s a modest +225 return, not great value, but, ya know, good to have a little action.
6:06: It’s time for the Itauma-Franklin Tale of the Tape, so I’m turning up the DAZN volume and turning down the Prime volume. Oh, wait, no, they’re playing “Sweet Caroline” at the arena in Manchester, and one of my goals in life is to never hear that song again. I shall crank up the DAZN volume just as soon as all the drunk “oh-oh-oh”-ing is complete.
6:09: Itauma is rapped into the ring by a guy wearing a mask who sounds just like Ali G to me – although in fairness, any rapper with a British accent sounds just like Ali G to me.
6:14: Ring announcer Thomas Treiber loudly informs us “The hour of truth has arrived!” Is this a new catchphrase? Or has he been using it a while and I just haven’t been paying attention? If I were boxing czar, I’d ban all ring announcer catchphrases other than Michael Buffer’s “Let’s get ready to rumble,” and I’d ban David Diamante’s “four corners of the earth” nonsense twice. On that spectrum, Treiber’s “hour of truth” lands somewhere in the middle.
6:19: Itauma buzzes a slightly-tubbier-than-usual Franklin a couple of times late in the first round. Any KO win over Franklin – whose only two losses came over the 12-round distance against Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte – would qualify as an accomplishment, but if Itauma were to do so early, that ramps it up from “accomplishment” to “statement.”
6:27: Over on Prime, an upset was not brewing after all in the Gallegos-Gonzalez fight, as Gallegos takes a decision, winning pretty much every round other than the one in which he got knocked down. Meanwhile, on DAZN, it’s the third round and Franklin already seems to be fully in survival mode. A sudden Itauma right hook to the ear drops him late in the round, and clearly we’ve entered “a matter of time” territory.
6:34: Moments after the Brayan Gonzalez-Brandon Medina six-rounder begins on the Prime broadcast, Itauma-Franklin comes to a spectacular end. A sick left uppercut causes a three-stage reaction from Franklin: freeze, wobble, face plant. It’s a TKO5 for Itauma, no need for ref Steve Gray to count. The slo-mo replay delivers for fans of undulating man-boobs.
Anyway, you couldn’t ask for much more out of Itauma. Obviously, he needs to step up the competition before we’ll know for sure what he’s capable of, but he’s still just 21, and he’s doing everything you could ask against the half-steps up (Whyte and Franklin). Not sure whether this qualifies as a hot take, but I think I’d pick him to beat any heavyweight not named Oleksandr Usyk right now.
6:54: With the DAZN broadcast well over, Prime is now on the main TV, and following a perhaps premature fifth-round stoppage in the Gonzalez-Medina bout, we get a scenic shot of downtown Las Vegas, rather than the usual panoramic shot of the Strip. The fights are taking place at MGM Grand, which is on the Strip, so the cut to downtown doesn’t make any sense. But for the sake of visual variety, I endorse it.
7:07: The final pre-PPV fight, Garcia vs. Newman, is about to begin, and none of my guests are here yet, so I can’t even make a lame “Hello, Newman” joke for nobody to laugh at.
7:25: Roy Jones Jnr, Newman’s head trainer, does a fine job channeling Teddy Atlas after the fourth round: “He’s bitching you out! … Either fight, or quit fuckin’ boxing!” As frustrating as it must be for any trainer to watch their fighter underperform, it must be 10 times tougher on Roy, having to coach these mere mortals. For what it’s worth, the fiery approach works, as Newman has a much better fifth round.
7:33: Nigel arrives. Otis is barking and jumping on him and causing him to drop his bottle of Orange Crush – it’s officially a PPV party. We’re gonna put that carbonated beverage in the fridge for a bit before we attempt to open it.
7:51: At the conclusion of 10 competitive rounds, Newman captures a deserved majority decision, and my parlay bet is dead because -700 favorite Garcia couldn’t deliver. I was hoping for maybe a BS draw to keep the parlay alive at a reduced payout, but nope, it wasn’t to be. You can now be 100% certain that the last two legs of the parlay will hit. (Unless I chase that certainty into a new parlay with just those other two legs, in which case one will hit and one won’t.)
7:55: I close the Prime app and shift over to PPV.com, where the countdown clock confirms we have a few minutes before the main broadcast starts, so it’s into the kitchen for me and Nigel to fill our cups and our snack plates. I’m going with Coke rather than a fruity alcoholic drink due to the aforementioned lack of a nap and the potential late night.
8:10: Heavyweights Gurgen Hovhannisyan and Cesar Navarro are in the ring. The latter, incredibly, was a welterweight in 2017 and ’18, then took five years off and returned as a 210-pounder. The former hasn’t seen welterweight since he was in second grade. I have to give credit to Hovhannisyan’s parents for their choice of name. This guy really looks like a Gurgen.
8:12: Hovhannisyan’s trunks read “Big Gug,” which is dangerously, but appropriately, close to “Big Lug.” We see trainer Joe Goossen in Hovhannisyan’s corner, decked out from head to toe in white denim. If full-body blue denim is the “Canadian tuxedo,” what do we call this? The Backstreet Canadian tuxedo, perhaps? I’m accepting suggestions. Anyway, while Goossen is stylin’ and profilin’, Nigel is sharing tales of watching Wilt Chamberlain play in person.
8:19: Nigel is not terribly impressed with Hovhannisyan, nor should he be, as Big Gug is being overly cautious against an opponent half his size, throwing nothing but jabs.
8:31: Hovhannisyan finally opens up late in the fifth, and ref Robert Hoyle stops it – a little too early for our tastes. No, Navarro wasn’t punching back, but at the same time, he didn’t appear at all hurt. “I don’t want to see this fat guy again,” Nigel says of Hovhannisyan. (Maybe it’s not politically correct, but at my PPV parties, playful body shaming is permitted.) I’m a little bummed that Bill isn’t here yet to make fat jokes at Big Gug’s expense, as that is one of Dettloff’s specialties.
8:36: Bill arrives, decked out in a Doug Stanhope T-shirt. Within two minutes, he’s informing me that Otis has porked up since the last time he saw him (Bill isn’t wrong), confirming that we indeed missed some comedy gold had Bill gotten here a few minutes earlier to rip on Hovhannisyan’s physique.
8:38: An on-screen graphic listing Thurman’s injuries over the years includes the word “bicep,” and I guess everyone in the PBC/Prime production crew needs to be fired. The correct singular of “biceps” is also “biceps.” Thank you for attending my TED Talk.
8:43: As Yoenli Hernandez and Terrell Gausha are in the ring for the next bout, Bill is sharing a story he heard secondhand about Arturo Gatti that involves [redacted alleged activity] and [other redacted alleged activity] and sounds almost certainly true, but it would be journalistically irresponsible of me to share it.
8:54: Nigel and I aren’t drinking alcohol tonight, but Bill is, grabbing a Stella Artois from the garage fridge. The Seinfeld “man hands” scene gets referenced as Bill notes it’s “not a twist-off.” The third round of Hernandez-Gausha is winding down, and it’s apparent the overmatched veteran Gausha has already lost interest in trying to win.
8:58: Otis is barking at absolutely nothing (he’s almost 10 years old and this has happened a few times recently, and I’m starting to get mildly concerned), and referee Allen Huggins does Otis one better by stopping the fight over absolutely nothing. The crowd boos as Hernandez picks up a fourth-round TKO win.
9:07: The early ending sends the broadcast into time-filling mode, showing a feature on Gabriela Fundora, sister of the headliner. In my living room, we’re killing time by sharing tales of bad comb-overs.
9:12: While being interviewed by Jim Gray backstage, Thurman calls undercard fighter Brian Mendoza “Mundoza,” which reminds me of how Brian Campbell and Rafe Bartholomew frequently used to reference Thurman calling the 147lbs division “walterweight.”
9:23: We get a shot of Sebastian Fundora with his shirt off, prompting Bill to say, “I don’t know how many cancers I’d have to have to be that skinny.” (Yes, we’re now combining body shaming with insensitive references to deadly diseases. Get over it.) Bill continues, “I’m not sure I like the mustache. He looks like somebody put Freddie Mercury on the rack.” Dettloff is heating up.
9:37: Mendoza (or “Mundoza” if you prefer) and Tellez are in the ring, and I declare that this is the fight I’m expecting to steal the show. The first two rounds prove fairly cautious and I’m not looking especially prescient.
9:49: In the third round, a nasty head clash sends Tellez to the canvas in tremendous pain, and we soon see that blood is gushing from his nose (nice close-up by a cameraman of the puddle formed on the canvas). Every bit of the Cuban’s body language suggests he’s not going to fight on and will go home with a no-contest, which has Bill preemptively bitching him out and listing worse-looking headbutts that other fighters have persevered through.
9:53: After taking four of his possible five minutes to recover, Tellez decides that he, too, will persevere through this. Good for him, I suppose, but I can’t help but think about how Tim Tszyu didn’t take the no-contest exit ramp when he was gushing blood early in his first fight with Fundora and hasn’t gotten his career back on track since.
10:02: I’ve been following the live odds and, seeing them at -115 in both directions at the end of the fourth round, I decide I’m going to bet on Tellez. Unfortunately, I tap Mendoza’s name instead and don’t realize my mistake until the bet is placed. I swear I haven’t been drinking. On the bright side, I am a pathetic nit who only wagered the cost of a slice or two of pizza on this.
10:10: Tellez-Mendoza is really heating up in the seventh, living up to my expectations and making me look vaguely prescient after all. Between rounds, Bill signs my copy of his latest book, Ring Theory: Meditations on 35 Years in Boxing. (How’s that for an organic plug?)
10:13: By the end of another thrilling round in the eighth, Mendoza is falling behind (naturally, since I accidentally bet on him) and dealing with a cut on his left eyelid. Nigel, meanwhile, is getting annoyed with ref Harvey Dock breaking the fighters before they’ve even clinched – a consistent Nigel pet peeve for as long as I’ve known him.
10:20: The MGM Grand crowd rises with a hearty cheer as the 10th and final round begins, recognizing that this fight has indeed stolen the show and both men have absorbed significant punishment. Mendoza seems to capture the round, but it’s not enough to change the result, as Tellez wins a deserved, if slightly too wide, decision by scores of 98-92 and 97-93 twice.
10:39: Is this real life? Are main event ringwalks actually starting at 10:39 p.m. on the East Coast? I’ve never felt more alive.
10:44: No national anthems! We’re getting right to the fighter intros! I’m feeling even more alive than I did five minutes ago.
10:47: It’s 13 minutes before 11 p.m. and an actual punch has landed in the main event. My faith in humanity has taken one tiny step toward restoration.
10:52: A Fundora left hand nearly knocks Thurman down in the second round, but he shows superb balance not to even touch a glove as his knees dip. Fundora has clearly won the first two rounds, but he isn’t his usual fun, aggressive self so far.
10:58: Even though I’ve been drinking Coke and it’s not yet 11 and we’re only in the third round of the main event, I catch my eyes closing for just a second. Neither Nigel nor Bill notice, as they are, appropriately, watching the TV screen and not me. Still: The narcoleptic struggle is real.
11:04: Thurman has been using his legs a lot and getting very little done – understandable when you’re 37 years old and your opponent is 11 feet tall – but at the start of the fifth round, “One Time” lands by far his best punch so far, a straight left hand to the jaw that elicits an “ooh!” from me and Nigel. The action is picking up, with Fundora dishing out copious punishment but Thurman periodically getting in a good shot of his own. Just before the bell, however, Fundora hurts Thurman, and it’s obvious this won’t last much longer.
11:08: The doctor takes a good look at Thurman before the sixth. Yep, all parties are ready to end this at the next convenient opportunity.
11:09: Ref Thomas Taylor calls a halt at 1:17 of the sixth, and Thurman – who’d never been stopped before – protests, but this was an appropriate stoppage. Even though most of Fundora’s punches toward the end were missing their target, Thurman was taking a beating and had no realistic hope of getting back into the fight. Fundora was the same devastating force he appeared to be against Tszyu in his previous fight, and it just gets harder and harder to believe that he was KO’d by Mendoza/Mundoza three years ago.
Nigel wonders aloud if this will be the last time we see Thurman in the ring. And I wonder in my head who would emerge from a junior middleweight round-robin between Fundora, Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Vergil Ortiz Jnr. (And “in my head” is probably where that will remain for a while, since boxing fans aren’t allowed to have nice things.)
11:15: It’s only a quarter past 11, and my guests have departed. Wow. I eat a couple more mediocre chocolatey caramel cookies as I clean up, ponder what I’ll do with about 1.9 liters of leftover Orange Crush and look back regretfully on my wagers – both the mis-click and the parlay that was, of course, perfect aside from the one leg that wasn’t.
On the bright side, I got to spend quality time with a couple of old friends, I only slept through about half a second of the boxing action and at no point did anyone body-shame me. And, best of all, when I get in bed momentarily, it will still be Saturday, not Sunday.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with nearly 30 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, 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, BlueSky, or LinkedIn, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.
