Welterweight Dmitriy Salita dropped a unanimous decision to Gabriel Bracero tonight at the Aviator Sports Complex in Brooklyn, New York. Bracero was the aggressor for much of the fight and landed a number of eye-catching left hooks.
Salita entered the ring first, wearing his customary Star of David on his trunks. Bracero's trunks featured the Puerto Rican flag. In the first round, both men jabbed early and Salita began backing up. Salita was able to duck Bracero's power punches, but wasn't in position to counter.
In the second, Bracero landed a hard left hook that wobbled Dmitriy. Bracero did the same in each of the next several rounds. Salita jabbed effectively and stuck rights into Bracero's body during the quiet moments, but the shots that made the crowd gasp were all owned by Bracero.
There were more quiet moments in the sixth and seventh rounds than there had been previously and Salita should have carried those. Dmitriy continued to be successful early in the eighth, but then a left hook knocked him down. From that point forward, Bracero punished Salita for most of the round, though Salita had his moments at the end.
The ninth was a good comeback round for Salita, who landed some rights throughout the night, but Bracero punctuated the round with an uppercut. Bracero was aggressive and controlled the action for much of the contest. He showed good power as well.
The fight was taken in by Paulie Malignaggi, Buddy McGirt, and the Amazing Kreskin, among others. After the fight, Bracero told Steve Farhood, "I give Dmitriy all the respect in the world," noting that they have known each other since childhood. Bracero moves his record to 22-1 with 4 KOs and Salita falls to 35-2-1 with 18 KOs.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
Salita-Bracero Preview
Welterweight Dmitriy Salita faces Gabriel "Tito" Bracero at the Aviator Sports Complex in Brooklyn, New York tomorrow. Both men are fighting int heir home borough and are stepping up the quality of competition relative to recent fights.
Salita (35-1-1, 18 KOs) has won five fights against journeymen since his 2009 defeat to Amir Khan. Bracero (22-1, 4 KOs) has won four fights since his 2012 loss at the hands of DeMarcus Corley. Save Khan, Bracero is Salita's toughest opponent; a case can be made that Salita is a tougher challenge for Bracero than was Corley, a former champion who was 37 years old and had lost six straight heading into the match with Tito.
Salita comes into the fight with a number of advantages. He's the bigger man, weighing in at over 147 pounds in each of his last five bouts. Bracero has never weighed as much as the welterweight limit in any pro fight. Salita is a couple of inches taller, a year younger, and has more experience in the ring.
Dmitriy's best punch is his jab. He's also a devastating body puncher, having knocked down James Wayka several times with body shots in 2010 and sapping Roberto Valenzuela's will to fight the following year. As the taller man, Salita will want to jab early and often against Bracero, who has been known to vary his attack between coming forward and boxing from the outside. Salita will only want to tag Tito's body when the two are on the inside since he'll otherwise have to reach for the shorter man's midsection from distance, exposing his chin to a counter.
Salita possesses good hand speed and decent power. Against Wayka, Salita landed a number of overhand rights that opened up Wayka's body for punishment. Against Brandon Hoskins last October, Salita saw an opportunity for his left hook to land. It will be important for Salita to initiate the action with his jab and punctuate it with head shots early to open up the body. Salita's KO power is to the body.
Salita's main problem is that he's a slow starter. He was knocked down once in the first round against Robert Frankel in 2005, twice in the first against Ramon Montano in his next fight, and three times in the first against Khan. When facing fighters not on his level such as Hoskins, Valenzuela, and Wayka, it still took a little time for Salita to find his grove.
It would thus behoove Bracero, who spent six years in prison, to come forward and attack early. His best punch is the right which he throws off the jab. Bracero however sometimes becomes too square after throwing his right and it can be countered. His defense will need to improve against Salita because he's been cut early in each of his last two fights against men who were not throwing many punches.
Tito has shown fortitude throughout his career. Corley nearly blasted Bracero out of the ring in the second and third rounds of their fight, but Gabriel came back and even knocked Corley down later in the fight. He's often cut over the eyes in his fights, but it rarely seems to bother him.
Bracero's primary advantage though is activity. Bracero has fought once this year and was in four fights in 2012. Salita hasn't fought in over a year and has only been in the ring twice in 19 months. Since Salita's lone loss to Khan in 2009, he has fought only five times while Bracero has fought 17 times in the same span.
Bracero has more power than his four KOs suggest, but when he's ahead, he doesn't go in for the stoppage. At that point, he prefers to box. It's unlikely that Bracero, whose punches can be too mechanical, will be able to outbox the more fluid Salita. Bracero's best hope is to constantly pressure Dmitriy in order to wear him down and frustrate him.
The match is scheduled for ten rounds. The winner of this crossroads bout hopes to get a significant fight on a major television network in the U.S. There has been some talk that the winner could face the winner of December's clash between Zab Judah and Paulie Malignaggi.
Salita (35-1-1, 18 KOs) has won five fights against journeymen since his 2009 defeat to Amir Khan. Bracero (22-1, 4 KOs) has won four fights since his 2012 loss at the hands of DeMarcus Corley. Save Khan, Bracero is Salita's toughest opponent; a case can be made that Salita is a tougher challenge for Bracero than was Corley, a former champion who was 37 years old and had lost six straight heading into the match with Tito.
Salita comes into the fight with a number of advantages. He's the bigger man, weighing in at over 147 pounds in each of his last five bouts. Bracero has never weighed as much as the welterweight limit in any pro fight. Salita is a couple of inches taller, a year younger, and has more experience in the ring.
Dmitriy's best punch is his jab. He's also a devastating body puncher, having knocked down James Wayka several times with body shots in 2010 and sapping Roberto Valenzuela's will to fight the following year. As the taller man, Salita will want to jab early and often against Bracero, who has been known to vary his attack between coming forward and boxing from the outside. Salita will only want to tag Tito's body when the two are on the inside since he'll otherwise have to reach for the shorter man's midsection from distance, exposing his chin to a counter.
Salita possesses good hand speed and decent power. Against Wayka, Salita landed a number of overhand rights that opened up Wayka's body for punishment. Against Brandon Hoskins last October, Salita saw an opportunity for his left hook to land. It will be important for Salita to initiate the action with his jab and punctuate it with head shots early to open up the body. Salita's KO power is to the body.
Salita's main problem is that he's a slow starter. He was knocked down once in the first round against Robert Frankel in 2005, twice in the first against Ramon Montano in his next fight, and three times in the first against Khan. When facing fighters not on his level such as Hoskins, Valenzuela, and Wayka, it still took a little time for Salita to find his grove.
It would thus behoove Bracero, who spent six years in prison, to come forward and attack early. His best punch is the right which he throws off the jab. Bracero however sometimes becomes too square after throwing his right and it can be countered. His defense will need to improve against Salita because he's been cut early in each of his last two fights against men who were not throwing many punches.
Tito has shown fortitude throughout his career. Corley nearly blasted Bracero out of the ring in the second and third rounds of their fight, but Gabriel came back and even knocked Corley down later in the fight. He's often cut over the eyes in his fights, but it rarely seems to bother him.
Bracero's primary advantage though is activity. Bracero has fought once this year and was in four fights in 2012. Salita hasn't fought in over a year and has only been in the ring twice in 19 months. Since Salita's lone loss to Khan in 2009, he has fought only five times while Bracero has fought 17 times in the same span.
Bracero has more power than his four KOs suggest, but when he's ahead, he doesn't go in for the stoppage. At that point, he prefers to box. It's unlikely that Bracero, whose punches can be too mechanical, will be able to outbox the more fluid Salita. Bracero's best hope is to constantly pressure Dmitriy in order to wear him down and frustrate him.
The match is scheduled for ten rounds. The winner of this crossroads bout hopes to get a significant fight on a major television network in the U.S. There has been some talk that the winner could face the winner of December's clash between Zab Judah and Paulie Malignaggi.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Danny Ahrens vs. Lewis Van Poetsch
October 17, 2013
Park Plaza Hotel
London, England
Ahrens: black and white trunks
Van Poetsch: dark green, orange, and black trunks
Park Plaza Hotel
London, England
Ahrens: black and white trunks
Van Poetsch: dark green, orange, and black trunks
Thursday, October 31, 2013
A Look Back: Ben Bril and Nathan Shapow
In an effort to link the past with the present, The Jewish Boxing Blog will offer monthly a short biography of notable former Jewish boxers.
This series so far has been reserved for professional Jewish boxers, but Ben Bril and Nathan Shapow, though neither ever fought professionally, are two amateurs who deserved to be remembered for the horrors they endured outside of the ring. Both men survived the Holocaust.
Ben Bril was born on July 16, 1912 in a poor Jewish section of Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was one of six children born to a fisherman father. Bril began boxing at an early age and made the 1928 Summer Olympics, held in his hometown, Amsterdam. A flyweight, he was only 15 years old at the time.
Bril was good enough to make the 1932 Olympics, but was barred by the Dutch Olympic committee because Ben was a Jew and the committee was led by an anti-Semite. Bril earned a gold medal at the Maccabiah Games in 1935. He boycotted the 1936 Olympics held in Nazi-governed Berlin.
On May 10, 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. Things soon became progressively worse for Dutch Jews. In 1941, the new German-led government began deporting a small number of Jews and the deportations only rose in size as time passed. Bril was deported to Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in Germany, with his wife and son. Amazingly, the trio survived the war. But almost all of the rest of Bril's family died in the Holocaust. Only one brother survived.
Bril would eventually become a boxing referee, officiating fights in the Netherlands, Germany, England, and Spain among other places. He oversaw separate fights involving heavyweight contenders Henry Cooper and Karl Mildenberger.
Bril, who died in 2003, has been honored with a movie and a biography in the Netherlands, but there is still too little about his life in English. The Ben Bril Memorial, featuring a series of boxing matches, is held every year in October in Amsterdam. Junior welterweight Barry Groenteman, a native of Amsterdam, has participated in the memorial multiple times. "It means a lot to me," he said.
"Ben Bril is a Jewish boxing legend in the Netherlands. It's a honour for me to carry his legacy. My biggest motivation is to tell our story to the world. I'm a very proud Jewish person and very proud to be a Jewish boxer." Barry continued, "It's important for me that in 2014 I will win all my fights. And to keep Jewish boxing in Europe alive."
Nathan Shapow was born on November 6, 1921 in Riga, Latvia. He had two brothers and lived in a two-bedroom house with his parents, Mordecai and Chaye. Shapow's boyhood hobby was boxing, a sport in which he honed his skills at local Jewish youth clubs. He soon fought in amateur bouts.
As the situation worsened for Latvian Jews throughout the 1930s, Shapow became more political. Keeping the family tradition, Shapow was a follower of Vladimir Jabotinsky, as is current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Shapow would become a member of Betar, a right-wing militant organization that believed in Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionism.
Latvia was contested ground between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Both countries occupied Latvia in the early 1940s. While in the Nazi-controlled Riga ghetto, Shapow was a member of a group called the "Strong Ones." These men stole what they could to stay strong in order to protect their fellow Jews from the anti-Semitic authorities. At one point, with a crunching straight right Shapow killed an SS officer that had come to kill him.
Throughout the Holocaust, Shapow was transferred to numerous work and death camps. He miraculously avoided certain death on countless occasions. One time he was saved by a man who he had known from his boxing days. During the hell he endured, Shapow's ability to steal food kept himself well-fed relative to other starving Jews. He was also generous with his filched bounty, giving away sustenance to fellow interred Jews.
In the camps, Shapow was forced to engage in boxing matches with other inmates for the enjoyment of gentiles. In his book, he claims he was quite successful against even professional fighters because of his tremendous power.
After the war, Shapow managed to make it to Palestine illegally and fought in the notorious Irgun and with the Stern Gang in the years before Israel's independence. After independence, he fought in the new nation's early wars. By the 1960s, he had grown tired of fighting constantly and took part in a few different professions. He soon moved to the United States, where he still lives.
Bibliography
"Ben Bril Memorial." benbrilboxing.com (in Dutch).
Shapow, Nathan. The Boxer's Story: Fighting for My Life in the Nazi Camps.2012.
Shoah Foundation. "Holocaust Survivor Nathan Shapow Testimony." 1994.
This series so far has been reserved for professional Jewish boxers, but Ben Bril and Nathan Shapow, though neither ever fought professionally, are two amateurs who deserved to be remembered for the horrors they endured outside of the ring. Both men survived the Holocaust.
Ben Bril was born on July 16, 1912 in a poor Jewish section of Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was one of six children born to a fisherman father. Bril began boxing at an early age and made the 1928 Summer Olympics, held in his hometown, Amsterdam. A flyweight, he was only 15 years old at the time.
Bril was good enough to make the 1932 Olympics, but was barred by the Dutch Olympic committee because Ben was a Jew and the committee was led by an anti-Semite. Bril earned a gold medal at the Maccabiah Games in 1935. He boycotted the 1936 Olympics held in Nazi-governed Berlin.
On May 10, 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. Things soon became progressively worse for Dutch Jews. In 1941, the new German-led government began deporting a small number of Jews and the deportations only rose in size as time passed. Bril was deported to Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in Germany, with his wife and son. Amazingly, the trio survived the war. But almost all of the rest of Bril's family died in the Holocaust. Only one brother survived.
Bril would eventually become a boxing referee, officiating fights in the Netherlands, Germany, England, and Spain among other places. He oversaw separate fights involving heavyweight contenders Henry Cooper and Karl Mildenberger.
Bril, who died in 2003, has been honored with a movie and a biography in the Netherlands, but there is still too little about his life in English. The Ben Bril Memorial, featuring a series of boxing matches, is held every year in October in Amsterdam. Junior welterweight Barry Groenteman, a native of Amsterdam, has participated in the memorial multiple times. "It means a lot to me," he said.
"Ben Bril is a Jewish boxing legend in the Netherlands. It's a honour for me to carry his legacy. My biggest motivation is to tell our story to the world. I'm a very proud Jewish person and very proud to be a Jewish boxer." Barry continued, "It's important for me that in 2014 I will win all my fights. And to keep Jewish boxing in Europe alive."
Nathan Shapow was born on November 6, 1921 in Riga, Latvia. He had two brothers and lived in a two-bedroom house with his parents, Mordecai and Chaye. Shapow's boyhood hobby was boxing, a sport in which he honed his skills at local Jewish youth clubs. He soon fought in amateur bouts.
As the situation worsened for Latvian Jews throughout the 1930s, Shapow became more political. Keeping the family tradition, Shapow was a follower of Vladimir Jabotinsky, as is current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Shapow would become a member of Betar, a right-wing militant organization that believed in Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionism.
Latvia was contested ground between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Both countries occupied Latvia in the early 1940s. While in the Nazi-controlled Riga ghetto, Shapow was a member of a group called the "Strong Ones." These men stole what they could to stay strong in order to protect their fellow Jews from the anti-Semitic authorities. At one point, with a crunching straight right Shapow killed an SS officer that had come to kill him.
Throughout the Holocaust, Shapow was transferred to numerous work and death camps. He miraculously avoided certain death on countless occasions. One time he was saved by a man who he had known from his boxing days. During the hell he endured, Shapow's ability to steal food kept himself well-fed relative to other starving Jews. He was also generous with his filched bounty, giving away sustenance to fellow interred Jews.
In the camps, Shapow was forced to engage in boxing matches with other inmates for the enjoyment of gentiles. In his book, he claims he was quite successful against even professional fighters because of his tremendous power.
After the war, Shapow managed to make it to Palestine illegally and fought in the notorious Irgun and with the Stern Gang in the years before Israel's independence. After independence, he fought in the new nation's early wars. By the 1960s, he had grown tired of fighting constantly and took part in a few different professions. He soon moved to the United States, where he still lives.
Bibliography
"Ben Bril Memorial." benbrilboxing.com (in Dutch).
Shapow, Nathan. The Boxer's Story: Fighting for My Life in the Nazi Camps.2012.
Shoah Foundation. "Holocaust Survivor Nathan Shapow Testimony." 1994.
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