The Tragedy of “The Harlem Hammer” Needn’t Be Repeated So Often

Published

10 years ago

November 21, 2014

His nickname, ironically, was “The Harlem Hammer.”

James Butler was a super middleweight boxer, and a pretty good one at that. A fan favorite in his native New York City because of his relentless, attacking style, Butler was accomplished enough to have earned a title shot at IBF super middleweight champion Sven Ottke on Sept. 1, 2000, in Magdeburg, Germany, and despite the fact that he dropped a one-sided decision to the slick-boxing German, he was still rated at No. 8 in the 168-pound weight class by the IBF when he took on Richard Grant in his next bout, on Nov. 23 of that year, at the Roseland Ballroom in midtown Manhattan.

Grant, a pronounced underdog despite the fact he had outpointed Butler in a four-rounder early in the respective careers, on Jan. 31, 1997, had reprised his earlier victory in winning a unanimous, 10-round decision. The Brooklyn, N.Y., resident was celebrating with his cornermen when Grant, whose gloves had been removed, walked over as if to offer a congratulatory handshake.

As Grant lifted his arms to hug his opponent, a gesture of respect and sportsmanship that is so often the case in even the hardest-fought boxing matches, “The Harlem Hammer” nailed him with an overhand right to the jaw that sent the victor crashing to the canvas, unconscious, bloody spittle spewing from his mouth like fiery ash from an erupting volcano.

That’s when all hell broke loose. But it would not be the last criminally violent act of a mentally unstable individual whose inner demons had yet to become fully, and tragically, apparent.

Predictably, Bob Papa and Teddy Atlas, who had called the bout that was televised on ESPN2, reacted with shock and revulsion.

“James Butler should never be allowed in the ring again!” Papa, the blow-by-blow announcer, screamed into his microphone. “Absolutely! That’s assault and battery! He should be arrested right on the spot! What a punk! The police should come in here and arrest him! Handcuff him!”

Atlas, the color analyst, was no less aghast by what he had just seen. “Butler just went over there and sucker-punched – sucker-punched! – and knocked out Grant,” he said. “Oh, boy. Terrible. And the new commissioner (of the New York State Athletic Commission), Ray Kelly, will do something very, very enforceful here … That was a punch without a glove on! A despicable, cowardly act!”

Butler’s in-ring meltdown is all the more egregious and unfathomable considering the circumstances: All the proceeds from the “Fighting for America” card, held just two months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that had left 3,000 dead and a nation shaken, went to the Twin Towers Fund, and about 500 New York police officers and firefighters were among the 1,517 spectators. Several of the participating boxers – including Butler, who was to be paid $10,000 – had pledged their entire purses toward the relief effort.

Seated at ringside was Kelly, who in addition to his top spot with the NYSAC, was New York mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg’s newly appointed police commissioner. If Butler was going to commit an act of senseless violence that potentially could have landed him in prison for seven years, this was the worst possible audience before which to do it.

Kelly, in fact, did order the arrest of Butler, who was led from the arena in handcuffs. He spent the night at the Rikers Island detention facility, and he later was convicted of assault. He served four months behind bars, accelerating a personal and professional decline that may have been inevitable in any case.

Born and raised in a housing project by a mother who frequently left him and his brother to fend for themselves, Butler had gotten a reputation for having a quick temper even before he coldcocked Grant and made himself something of a pariah in New York’s close-knit boxing community. Tales abounded of harsh words, and sometimes blows, he frequently exchanged with sparring partners and others outside the ring at the gym that served as his home base as well as for Atlas, who trained fighters in addition to his ESPN2 analyst duties.

“I’m sure there were previous incidents (prior to the postfight knockout of Grant) if you trace it back,” Atlas told me a few days before the Nov. 23 anniversary date of the fateful night he now calls “probably the worst” transgression he has ever seen in the sport, along with Mike Tyson’s chewing off of part of Evander Holyfield’s right ear on June 28, 1997. “I’m sure there were other past acts of violence, or at least threats of violence. I knew he had gotten into some skirmishes in the gym where I was when he was training, but they never got to a level where he seriously hurt anybody. Some threats may have been made, but you see that sometimes in the gym. Usually nothing comes of it.”

Perhaps, if he had refrained from throwing the illegal punch that sent his career spinning wildly off-kilter, things would have turned out much differently for Butler. Then again, maybe not. He ballooned to 256 pounds, in part because of medication he was put on after he was diagnosed as being bipolar, but, even after he put in the time to get all the unwanted weight off – a process expedited by the fact he had cut back on or stopped taking his meds — he was a mere shadow of the fighter he had been. He was just 2-2 against mostly second-tier opponents after the Grant debacle, his final ring appearance a split-decision loss to Omar Sheika on Aug. 10, 2004.

Personal issues also contributed to Butler’s deteriorating state of mind and overall demise. He relocated to Vero Beach, Fla., to work with his new trainer, Buddy McGirt, and while there he met a woman, Chase Mariposa, who was to bear him a son. Mariposa would later say that Butler, his boxing income all but gone and his reputation in tatters, would often erupt into frightening fits of anger.

Feeling alone and unwanted, Butler, a two-time New York Golden Gloves champion, turned to the one friend who had been there for him through thick and frequently thin – Sam Kellerman, younger brother of Max Kellerman, a sports talk-show host who is now a boxing analyst for HBO Sports.

Sam Kellerman – well-educated (a graduate of Columbia University), outgoing, from an affluent family — seemed an unlikely candidate to ever have formed an alliance with the brooding Butler, a product of some of New York’s meaner streets. They were both products of the same town, but from decidedly different sections, and decidedly different sociological strata. Kellerman, a white-collar type who boxed to, as one associate said, “to toughen himself up,” and Butler, the menacing pro, had been introduced to each other a decade earlier by their mutual trainer, Alexander Newbold, who believed it was beneficial for his fighters to socialize outside of the gym.

Kellerman, by then living in Hollywood, Calif., agreed to take Butler in, with the understanding he would be a houseguest for only a few days. But the days stretched into weeks, Butler revealing no intention to move out, at which point Kellerman told his now-not-so-close friend that he would have him evicted if he did not leave voluntarily.

On Oct. 17, 2004, Sam Kellerman, 29, was found dead on the floor of his blood-splattered apartment. His body had been there for several days, the authorities said, and there was evidence of arson. The murder weapon, a bloody hammer, was found at the scene.

Three days after Kellerman’s body was discovered, Butler turned himself in to the police. He pleaded not guilty to murder and arson, but later pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and arson and was sentenced to 29 years, four months in prison by Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor.

Violent behavior, sometimes resulting in death, is common enough that it scarcely raises an eyebrow in 21^st century America. But when sports celebrities are involved, the issue takes on heightened significance. Even non-NFL fans are aware of the domestic- violence scandals that have made such well-known football players as Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Ray McDonald notorious figures. All of which raises an issue that increasingly merits discussion: Are athletes, especially those who have risen to prominence from desperately poor or disadvantaged backgrounds, more susceptible to involvement in the kind of incidents that have become something of a national cause celebre?

Atlas believes each case should be judged on its individual merits, but what are the criteria for realizing, with any degree of certainty, that anyone is a ticking time bomb about to go off?

“I think it’s important at all levels of society to identify someone who might have tendencies that are not conducive to a proper workplace,” said Atlas, whose concedes that his own background is pockmarked with youthful indiscretions. “If someone’s actions suggest he has violent impulses, that should not be accepted any place. It shouldn’t just be relegated to sports. We have to look at these things seriously at all times, but maybe even more so nowadays, because there seems to be more and more incidents that we’re learning about.

“It could be a stepfather beating a two-year-old child to death, which just happened in the Bronx and I read about in the newspaper. Apparently this child had shown signs of being abused by this person before, and was put back in that household. Now she’s dead. If she hadn’t been put back in that household, she’d still be alive. This is a child who never had a real chance at life.

“Do we need to look at things like that, and the James Butler situation, closer? Who’s responsibility is that? Who’s actually qualified to say this or that person is dangerous? I also read that somebody pushed somebody else in front of a subway train. They’ll probably find that the guy who did it is mentally disturbed, and I’m sure there are people capable of such things walking around the streets of New York right now. But who gets to make this call that `This person needs help,’ or `This other person should be put away.’ Usually it doesn’t happen until he acts out.”

So we are left to wonder, who is the next James Butler? Or the next Ike Ibeabuchi? Is one act of aberrant behavior enough to send up a red warning flare? Is two sufficient? Three or more?

Upon his return to boxing after his vicious attack on Grant, Butler his thought process went so blank he didn’t even realize what he had done, or why he had done it.

“Nothing went through my mind,” Butler told Tim Smith, of the New York Daily News, before his first post-Grant bout, against Thomas Reid, on Feb. 27, 2005. “That’s the point. It was flat-line. I was like dead. I went blank. After I hit Richard everything clicked back on. It was like fist to jaw, then the noise and the lights and I could see and hear all the people. It was like I was literally brain-dead for a while. If I had been thinking I would have just walked out of the ring, maybe punched a locker or broken a door or something.”

Understandably, Max Kellerman was – and still is – shaken by the death of a brother he cherished. But even he was prepared to grant Butler a bit of leniency just days after his post-fight assault on Grant. In a bylined story for ESPN.com, Max noted that “Riddick Bowe punched Larry Donald with his bare fist at a press conference promoting their match in 1994. The blow did no real physical damage. Nonetheless, it was assault. Bowe was neither led away in handcuffs nor handed a lifetime suspension from any state athletic commission. It could be that the handling of Bowe’s assault was a mistake, and a more severe reaction was warranted. Yet if an example is made of Butler, the Bowe incident will beg the question: was Butler punished out of proportion?

“Mike Tyson bit a part of Evander Holyfield’s ear off, knocked Orlin Norris down and ended the fight after the bell had run to end the first round of their bout, admittedly tried to break Frans Botha’s arm in a clinch, and hit and knocked down the referee who tried to stop his fight against Lou Savarese. Tyson’s license has not been permanently taken away, despite this pattern of bad behavior. James Butler has no such pattern. His attacking Grant was an isolated incident.”

Atlas is correct. Good or bad, right or wrong, are not reserved sections for any particular group. The Menendez brothers, Lyle and Erik, were convicted in 1994 for the shotgun murder of their affluent parents in the family’s Beverly Hills, Calif., mansion. A movie that is drawing Academy Award notices, “Foxcatcher,” is in theaters now and details the murder of Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz by John Eleuthere du Pont, the heir to the du Pont pharmaceutical fortune. Du Pont, who was convicted in 1997, had demonstrated increasingly erratic and paranoid behavior prior to his killing of Schultz, but it was largely shrugged off as the eccentricities of a very wealthy man.

Atlas could offer himself as proof that everyone at least deserves a second chance. Son of a beloved physician in the family’s Staten Island, N.Y., neighborhood, the young Teddy dropped out of high school, served time in Rikers Island for his participation in an armed robbery and still bears the jagged facial scar from a street slashing that required 400 stitches to close. On Nov. 20, a date in close calendar proximity to the anniversary date of Butler’s unprovoked slugging of Grant, he will host the 18^th annual Dr. Theodore A. Atlas Foundation dinner, which aids Staten Island’s poor, sick and forgotten with emergency funds, as needed. And, on Saturday, Nov. 21, he again will distribute a thousand turkeys so that some of for the borough’s underprivileged citizens will have something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving.

Perhaps there is no way of absolutely detecting when a James Butler will cross the line separating civility and depravity, but there are enough instances when a Teddy Atlas or a Bernard Hopkins brakes himself before passing the point of no return that everyone else can dare to hope that salvation exists on a wider basis.

The final page of Teddy’s autobiography, “Atlas: A Son’s Journey From the Streets to the Ring to a Life Worth Living,” co-authored with Peter Alson, offers this positive message.

“I’m very aware of the extremes within me,” Atlas writes. “The caring and the anger. I’ve gotten better over the years at modulating them and controlling them, but I won’t pretend they don’t still exist. I guess in some ways my whole life has been a journey and a search for family. I wasn’t some kid from the streets. I was a doctor’s don who grew up in a nice house in a good neighborhood. It just goes to show that you can be lost and alone and neglected in any kind of surroundings.”

It’s too bad for Sam Kellerman – for all of us, really – that the journey of James Butler, “The Harlem Hammer,” didn’t lead him to the same sort of favorable destination.

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Bernard Fernandez

‘Big Bang’ KOs the Bronze Bomber in the Heavyweight Finale of a Splendid Card in Saudi Arabia

Published

2 days ago

June 1, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Big-Bang-KOs-the-Bronze-Bomber-in-the-Heavyweight-Finale-of-a-Splendid-Show-in-Saudi-Arabia

‘Big Bang’ KOs the Bronze Bomber in the Heavyweight Finale of a Splendid Card in Saudi Arabia

Two big heavyweight fights were the pillars of tonight’s show in Riyadh that showcased five boxers each from the stables of powerful promoters Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn. It was after three in the morning local time when Chinese behemoth Zhilei “Big Bang” Zhang brought the curtain down with a brutal fifth-round knockout of the Bronze Bomber, Deontay Wilder.

The first four rounds were humdrum. In the fifth, Wilder came out of his shell and landed some big punches. But a counter right from Zhang spun him completely around and left him wide open for another right hand. Seizing the moment, Zhang crashed home a big right on the exposed jaw of Wilder and the Alabaman went down in a heap. Had Wilder won, he would have purportedly secured a September date with Anthony Joshua in Wembley Stadium. But this was his fourth defeat in his last five bouts and, now 38 years old, it is assumed that he will retire. If so, he leaves the sport with a record of 43-4-1 with 42 KOs, and will always be remembered for his howitzer of a right hand.

Zhang, a giant by Chinese standards (six-foot-six and 282 pounds) is 41 years old but can look forward to a few more lucrative paydays. A two-time Olympian, he will bring a record of 27-2-1 (22 KOs) into his next engagement.

Co-Feature: Dubois vs Hrgovic

In his best showing since he bombed out former British amateur rival Nathan Gorman five years ago, heavyweight Daniel Dubois scored an eighth-round stoppage of Filip Hrgovic. The slugfest was stopped at the 50-second mark of Round 8 at the advice of the ringside physician with the Croatian bleeding from cuts around both eyes.

Hrgovic, who had an outstanding amateur pedigree and was undefeated (17-0, 14 KOs) heading in, landed the harder punches in the early rounds, but by the mid-point of the fight, Dubois, who improved to 21-2 (20) , was plainly the fresher man. There were no knockdowns, but Hrgovic, a 5/2 favorite, was in dire straits in round seven and one could sense that the end was near for him.

The bout was contested for the interim IBF title which Oleksandr Usyk is expected to vacate.

Bivol vs Zinad

In a stay-busy fight for Dmitry Bivol, the WBA world light heavyweight belt-holder scored a sixth-round stoppage of late sub Malik Zinad, advancing his record to 23-0 (12 KOs). Bivol had Zinad on the canvas with a right-left combination in the opening round, but Zinad, an obscure 30-year-old globetrotter from Libya by way of Malta, had a few good moments until Bivol closed the show in the sixth. A series of unanswered punches, seemingly about a dozen, had Zinad (22-1) in a bad way until the referee intervened.

Dmitry Bivol vs. Artur Beterbiev, for all the marbles at 175, is official for Oct. 12 where it will open a new edition of Riyadh Season.

Sheeraz vs Williams

England’s Hamzah Sheeraz, a six-foot-three middleweight of Pakistani and Indian descent, increased his international profile 100-fold with an 11^th-round stoppage of Houston’s previously undefeated Austin “Ammo” Williams. Sheeraz was buzzed in the second round, but utilized his height and reach advantage to assume control and was widely ahead on the cards at the finish.

Sheeraz knocked Williams to his knees with a chopping right hand in the waning seconds of round 10 and finished the job in the next frame, sending Williams staggering into the ropes with a fusillade of punches, forcing the stoppage. The official time was 0:45 of round 11.

It was the 14^th straight win inside the distance for Sheeraz who entered the ring a 9/4 favorite and improved his ledger to 20-0 (16 KOs). Williams declined to 16-1.

Featherweight Title Fight

The WBA world featherweight title match between Camden, New Jersey’s Raymond Ford and Liverpool’s Nick Ball produced a mild upset and a new title-holder. The relentless Ball, a five-foot-two wrecking ball, emerged victorious by dint of a split decision. All three judges had it 115-113 with two of the arbiters favoring the Liverpudlian.

Both were undefeated heading in. Ford (15-1-1) was defending the title he won with a come-from-behind, 12^th-round stoppage of Otabek Kholmatov. Against Ball, he fell behind early, but had a big seventh round, seemingly breaking Ball’s nose, and it was anyone’s fight heading into the final stanza.

Both boxers fought the final round as if they sensed that the fight was even and, although there were no knockdowns, the final round with its non-stop action was a fitting climax to an excellent fight. The second time was a charm for Ball (16-0-1) who suffered a disputed draw in his previous fight with another featherweight belt-holder, Rey Vargas.

Lid-lifter

The opening bout on the card produced another mild upset when Willy Hutchinson, a 26-year-old Scotsman, scored a 12-round unanimous decision over Craig Richards. A 34-year-old Londoner, Richards (18-4-1) had fought much stiffer competition, and he figured to come on late as Hutchinson had never fought beyond seven rounds. But the Scotsman, who improved to 18-1, repeatedly found a home for his right hand and got a second wind when it appeared that he was running out of gas. The judges had it 116-112, 117-111, and 119-109.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 285: Heavyweights Clash in Saudi Arabia and More

Published

3 days ago

May 31, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 285: Heavyweights Clash in Saudi Arabia and More

In this media age of flooded entertainment, heavyweight boxing seems to be front and center again.

Who doesn’t like to see gargantuan men clobber each other?

Rival British promoters Eddie Hearn (Matchroom) and Frank Warren (Queensberry) stack a fight card with their best heavyweights led by Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (43-3-1, 42 KOs) meeting Zhilei “Big Bang” Zhang (26-2-1, 21 KOs) in a main event on Saturday June 1, at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The pay-per-view card called “Five versus Five” will stream on the DAZN and ESPN platforms.

Wilder, 38, has lost three of his last four fights but who doesn’t like to see the wild swinging Alabama heavyweight do his thing. It’s like igniting the fuse of a cherry bomb and holding on to it as long as you can before it blows your fingers off.

He always has the potential to explode.

Zhang is a different cat. The large Chinese fighter has skills, can punch, and seems to take a blow just as well. But his gas tank always seems to be on empty. His last fight against Joseph Parker he was on the verge of victory but couldn’t manage that one last blow to end the fight. He eventually lost.

One thing different in this match is Wilder doesn’t win by decision. He either knocks your block off or loses.

“This is a dangerous fight for both,” said Henry Ramirez, a veteran boxing trainer from Riverside, California who worked with former heavyweight contender Chris Arreola. “Both guys have power and both can win.”

Ramirez believes the heavyweight that connects first may be the winner.

Another match pits heavyweights Daniel Dubois (20-2, 19 KOs) against Filip Hrgovic (17-0, 14 KOs). Both have qualities that could vault them to the top. Britian’s Dubois recently dismantled “Big Baby” Jarrell Miller and Croatia’s Hrgovic slid by Zhang when they met two years ago.

One of them could be on top.

“This is another interesting heavyweight fight,” said Ramirez. “The winner has a good chance to boost his career.”

Light heavyweights

Light heavyweight champ Dmitry Bivol (22-0, 11 KOs) was expected to clash with fellow Russian Artur Beterbiev, but instead you get Libya’s undefeated Malik Zinad (22-0, 16 KOs).

When Beterbiev pulled out due to injury it stymied plans to host one of the most talked-about light heavyweight fights in the last 40 years. Bivol forges on against little known Zinad who won a title eliminator against New Zealand’s Jerome Pampellone by majority decision in Sydney.

Still, Bivol remains one of the most skilled fighters in the game and is willing to risk it all for this fight card. That’s admirable.

Other Bouts

Ammo Williams (16-0, 11 KOs) returns and meets Hamzah Sheeraz (19-0, 15 KOs) in a battle between undefeated middleweights. It’s an interesting battle between the very strong southpaw from Texas and the tall middleweight from Essex. It might be the best fight of the day.

A featherweight clash showcases America’s Raymond Ford (15-0-1, 8 KOs) defending the WBA title against England’s pit bull Nick Ball (19-0-1, 11 KOs). The last time we saw Ball, he gave Mexico’s Rey Vargas hell for 12 rounds in a split-decision loss. Expect more of the same and perhaps this time he walks away with the belt.

New Women’s Boxing Book

New York’s Malissa Smith has a new book called “The Promise of Women’s Boxing: A Momentous New Era for the Sweet Science.” A launch party is planned on Saturday June 15, 7 p.m. at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn.

A panel discussion featuring several female prizefighters will be held during the launch, including Heather Hardy, Alicia Ashley, Shelly Vincent, Ronica Jeffrey, Maureen Shea and referee Sparkle Lee participating. The moderator is filmmaker Raquel Cepeda.

Rarely are books published on women’s boxing. Smith is one of the best authors in the world of prizefighting. This book is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other methods of purchase.

If you are curious about female boxing, this book will enlighten you to its current phase with champions such as Amanda Serrano, Katie Taylor, Claressa Shields and Mikaela Mayer leading the way. It’s been a wild ride for women’s boxing. Be sure to purchase and read this book.

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 5 p.m. Andreas Katzourakis (12-0) vs Kudratillo Abdukakhorov (20-2).

Fri. DAZN 5 p.m. Kevin Brown (4-0) vs Idalberto Umara (12-2)

Sat. 11 a.m. DAZN, ESPN ppv 11 a.m. Deontay Wilder (43-3-1) vs Zhilei Zhang (26-2-1); Dmitry Bivol (22-0) vs Malik Zinad (22-0); Daniel Dubois (20-2) vs Filip Hrgovic (17-0); Raymond Ford (15-0-1) vs Nick Ball (19-0-1).

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Ireland’s McKenna Brothers are Poised to Make Big Waves in the Squared Circle

Published

5 days ago

May 29, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Ireland's-McKenna-Brothers-are-Poised-to-Make-Big-Waves-in-the-Squared-Circle

McKenna is a common surname in County Monaghan in the Ulster province of Ireland. Four members of the McKenna tribe – Mr. and Mrs. Fergal McKenna and their two adult sons — are currently ensconced in Las Vegas, but they are not here on a holiday. The sons, Stephen, 27, and Aaron, 24, are professional boxers and they have come here to hone their craft.

Boxers from around the world come to Las Vegas to get better sparring than what is available in the gyms of their hometown. In any sport, one improves by testing his mettle against others who are more well-schooled. The fighting McKenna brothers (that’s Stephen on the left) have been here before. This is their third visit.

“If you want to do well in the boxing business, you have to fight the best,” says the boys’ father and trainer Fergal McKenna. “Las Vegas is a golden land for boxers,” he says as he surveys the scene at the Top Rank Gym. “You can smell boxing in the air here.”

Fergal, a carpenter by trade who supplemented his income working weekends as a nightclub bouncer, was a good athlete in his own right. He boxed some as an amateur, but made his mark in karate. In 2000, he represented Ireland in the World Karate Championships at the Tokyo Dome.

Transitioning into a karate coach, he figured that his sons would follow in his footsteps. “They didn’t like it,” he says, “and you can’t push people into something they don’t like.” But the boys, he discovered, enjoyed hitting people inside a boxing ring and had a natural talent for it. And so, Fergal transitioned once more, from a karate coach to a boxing coach. And the club he ran cranked out so many medal winners that he was asked to help coach the Irish National Team.

To foster his sons’ development, Fergal and his late father – the boys’ grandfather – built a boxing gym in the backyard garden of the family home. The McKenna home is in a rural area of the county in the village of Smithborough, home to a few hundred souls.

The shed, as the gym is simply and proudly called, is quite a shed as sheds go. It sits on a larger plot of ground than the house. It was finished in drips and drabs: “I kept running out of money,” says Fergel who estimates that he spent perhaps a hundred thousand in today’s euros for the building materials and all the furnishings. The ring, which had fallen into disuse, has some history to it. Lore has it that Rinty Monaghan, a post-war Irish boxing hero, had trod its canvas and the great Barry McGuigan from down the road in the County Monaghan town of Clones, spent many hours shadowboxing and sparring inside its ropes.

The brothers had hundreds of bouts as amateurs before turning pro, winning prestigious tournaments in far-flung places. At various times, both captained the Irish National Team, as did their older brother Gary who left the sport without turning pro and is now a schoolteacher.

As amateurs, Aaron was considered to have the bigger upside. Courted by U.S. promoters, he signed with Golden Boy and made his professional debut at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas at age 18. What followed were nine fights in Southern California before Aaron, his career stalled by Covid, returned to the British Isles and signed with promoter Mick Hennessy who was previously involved with Carl Froch and Tyson Fury, among others.

Stephen eventually joined his younger brother in California and the two of them with their dad behind the wheel made the rounds from their base in Woodland Hills to all the area’s top boxing gyms in search of good sparring, even venturing as far south as Tijuana.

While still an amateur, Stephen sparred with the likes of Vasyl Lomachenko and Ryan Garcia. The session with Garcia, says Stephen, was agreed-upon for six rounds, but KingRy bailed out after four. “He couldn’t handle my style of fighting,” says Stephen, who recalls that during one exchange he buckled Garcia’s knees. (KingRy dissents; he and Stephen McKenna have exchanged spiteful tweets.) More recently — just the other day – Stephen sparred with none other than Terence Crawford. They went four 4-minute rounds.

Aaron McKenna, currently 18-0 (9 KOs), will fight next in Osaka, Japan, on July 15. A middleweight with the frame to grow into a super middleweight, he is matched against Jeovanny Estela, a 23-year-old Floridian of Puerto Rican descent who sports a record of 15-0 (4). This is the quarterfinal round of a new 8-man Prizefighter tournament co-promoted by Matchroom which is making its first incursion into Japan. The purse for the winner is a cool million dollars and the contestants can enhance their earnings with bonuses for knockouts.

Stephen started his pro career later and has had four fewer fights, but he is also undefeated and his record (14-0, 13 KOs) is more eye-catching. A junior middleweight, he competes in the same weight class as another Irish boxer of note, Callum Walsh, a fighter from Cork who has found a home in Southern California and is on the same career path. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could fight someday in Dublin,” says Stephen. Barring any slip-ups along the way, that match-up would be a very big story in the Emerald Isle where the top boxers, amateur and pro, are far more well-known than in the United States.

“One thing I noted when I was in karate,” says Fergel, “is that the best competitors had the best dads. They weren’t necessarily the most talented, but they were the most disciplined.”

Fergel has had no trouble installing discipline in his sons. They embrace the spartan life of a prizefighter.

Las Vegas with its electric dance music scene has trended younger in recent years. Virtually every hotel on the Strip has a club where a DJ (some so famous they have their face on billboards) entertains a garishly-dressed crowd of mostly 20-something revelers who party until dawn. When we asked Stephen and Aaron, neither of whom is married, whether they planned to check out one of these establishments before they left the city, they gave us a look that plainly said “of course not; what a stupid question.”

It isn’t as if the brothers are caught in a time warp. They are big fans of Kendrick Lamar and it’s a mutual admiration society. They met in an LA-area boxing gym and the hip hop superstar not only turned up at Aaron’s sixth pro fight, but came into the dressing room before the bout to wish him well.

If Kendrick Lamar were performing a late show in Las Vegas tonight, however, it’s a safe bet that the brothers wouldn’t be there. In Las Vegas, it’s all business all the time and, oh, by the way, these two guys can really fight.

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