Location Change for Cohen's September 18 Bout

Dr. Stefi Cohen, a champion weightlifter, is scheduled to fight on September 18. The event has had a number of changes since it was first announced.

The main event was a celebrity match featuring the winner of the 2018 World's Strongest Man competition Thor Bjornsson against the winner of the 2017 World's Strongest Man competition Eddie Hall. But Hall came down with an injury and the spectacle was postponed. Thor is looking for a new opponent, and the rest of the card is expected to proceed.

The event was to be held at VyStar Veteran's Memorial in Jacksonville, Florida, but that site has been scrapped over concerns about the rising impact of the Delta variant of covid-19. The organizers chose not to move the card to a more intimate venue in Jacksonville. They didn't move it to nearby Tampa or St. Pete. Neither St. Augustine not Orlando was chosen as a replacement city.

Instead, with a bit more than a month until it is slated to occur, the organizers moved the event just a bit farther to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The date is still the same, and Stefi Cohen is still being promoted as fighting on the card.

Cohen won her first pro fight on June 4 when she stopped Haidde Zapa in the third round in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Cohen, 29 years old, trains with Dr. Pedro Diaz. No opponent for her second bout has been announced.

Review of The Minuteman

The Minuteman: The Forgotten Legacy of Nat Arno and the Fight against Newark's Nazis
By Greg Donahue
Amazon Audible, 2020

Nat Arno grew up fighting before finding an outlet for his aggressive nature in the sport of boxing. He turned pro unfathomably young, doing so on his fifteenth birthday (though BoxRec lists a fight even a couple days earlier). When his parents found out, Arno was prohibited from boxing. After six months, he ran away from home to pursue his pugilistic career.

The Newark native didn't make enough money in the ring, so he supplemented his income by working as an enforcer for mobster Longie Zwillman's bootlegging enterprise. When the 21st Amendment was passed repealing Prohibition in 1933, Arno was left with a void.

But the repeal of Prohibition coincided with the rise of Nazism in Germany and in the United States. Arno is the jumping off point for this tale of how the Newark Minutemen, a group of Jewish boxers run by Zwillman, combated American Nazism, particularly in New Jersey.

Though this audio book clocks in at just under two hours, Greg Donahue provides dramatic and detailed accounts of some clashes between the Minutemen and the Nazis. He effectively puts these confrontations, and Arno's life, into proper historical perspective. Narrator Jonathan Davis strikes the right note throughout. His deep voice lends additional gravitas to Donahue's words. Through subtle accents, Davis makes it clear when someone is being quoted. It's a very good marriage between writer and performer.

That the book is exclusively in an audio format has its pros and cons. Davis's performance is fantastic, which is a positive feature of the format. But there are drawbacks, specifically with this book. Listening to the funny anecdotes or the dramatic encounters in the car isn't a problem, but the subject of Nazism is often, by definition, dark and upsetting. It isn't easy to listen straight through. Another issue with the format is that it hinders research. Donohue uncovers some wonderful quotes from the colorful people on whom he's reporting, but it can an annoying for a researcher to transcribe them.

The Minuteman is worth a listen for anyone interested in pre-World War II Jewish boxers, Newark history, or American Nazism in the 1930s. Donahue's effort provides the nonfiction background that nicely complements Leslie K. Barry's novel Newark Minutemen. In addition to Arno, Jewish boxing fans are treated to appearances from Puddy Hinkes, Abie Bain, Benny Levine, and Al Fisher among others.

Recap of the Tokyo Olympics

Pavlo Ishchenko was the last Jewish boxer to fight in the Olympics when he competed for Ukraine in 2012. The Ukrainian-Israeli bantamweight went on to win his three pro fights. Though no Jewish boxers participated this year in Tokyo, the Games did have a Jewish angle... although it's a bit of stretch.

First of all, the boxing competition held in the sacred shrine of sumo wrestling, Kokukigan Arena, was much better run than in recent Olympics primarily because of AIBA's absence. Under AIBA, Olympic boxing had come to be defined by incompetence and corruption. This time there were some minor controversies- controversy is like boxing's shadow, it seems to follow the sport. But by and large the judging was fair and the referees- except for their ridiculous obsession with the fighters keeping their heads up- were as well.

Jewish boxing fans likely rooted for their co-nationalists. For Americans that meant admiring the impressive performances of the gritty Oshea Jones, Duke Ragan who showed poise and strong combination punching, Richard Torrez Jr. whose volume punching and strong left pulled off a remarkable  upset against Kazakhstan's Kamshybek Kunkabayev, and Keyshawn Davis who has the skills and the mentality to become a pro star.

Among the heavier weights on the men's side, Uzbekistan's gold medalist Bakhodir Jalolov (8-0 as a pro), Russia's silver medalist Muslim Gadzhimagomedov, New Zealand's bronze medalist David Nyika (1-0 as a pro), Torrez, and Kunkabayev (3-0 as a pro) all showed quality in multiple bouts.

The middle weights had plenty talent. At light heavyweight, Azerbaijan's Loren Alfonso and Great Britain's Ben Whittaker were such slick boxers while Russia's  Iman Khataev was unusually skilled for a man built like a tank. At middleweight Ukrainian Oleksander Khyzniak displayed precise aggression, but a left hook in the gold medal match ended his championship chances. Bronze medalist Eumir Marcial of the Philippines (1-0 as a pro),  Euri Cendeno of the Dominican Republic, and Ablikan Amankul were also worthy of note. Great Britain's Pat McCormack looked good in winning the silver medal at welter.

At the lighter weights, Armenian lightweight bronze medalist Hovhannes Bachkov (2-0 as a pro) and flyweight silver medalist Carlo Paalam of the Philippines were strong. And of course almost every member of the Cuban men's boxing team dominated their weight class.

On the women's side, flyweight gold medalist Stoyka Krasteva of Bulgaria, Brazilian lightweight silver medalist Beatriz Ferreira, and Great Britain's middleweight gold medalist Lauren Price all deserve recognition.

And while there were no Jewish boxers this time around, perhaps Yiddish-speaking fans rooted for Tajikistan's light heavyweight Shabbos Negmatulloev in his round of 32 match. Negmatulloev is quite literally a Shabbos goy even if he never spends a Friday night flicking on a light switch for an observant Jew.

It isn't know if welterweight Aliaksandr Radzionau is a rad zion-ist, but in any event the Belarussian made the round of 16. A Namibian lightweight shares not one but two names with the first female rabbi in modern history, Regina Jonas. Jonas Jonas also made it to the round of 16. And finally,  Russian welterweight bronze medalist Andrey Zamkovoy's opponents may have lamented their losses by uttering the last syllable of his surname, "Oy!" I told you it would be a stretch.