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Julian Bridges shows the heart, head – and even lungs – of a warrior

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At first glance, Julian Bridges is no different from your average 23-year-old Californian. He’s a San Francisco 49ers fan. He plays basketball to escape his routine and clear his mind. He works at Enterprise Rent-A-Car to pay the bills, and when he has time, he likes to go camping.

Born in San Jose and raised in Antioch in the Bay Area, Bridges (5-0, 2 KOs) is a youthful regional junior welterweight who is trying his hand at bigger events. On Tuesday in Nashville, Tennessee, he will face Frank Brown (3-5-2, 1 KO) at the Texas Troubadour Theatre after hopping on a plane from the West Coast for his longest trip away from home. In many ways, especially in the mind of a certain graying, middle-aged reporter, he is still a child.

But Bridges is also a perfect example of an aphorism that has held true since men began trading blows for profit: Fighters are simply built differently.

Bridges made that clear when he woke up on April Fools’ Day last year – fight day – to find his body playing nasty tricks on him.

“It happened in the morning when I was in the shower,” Bridges said. “I noticed that it was starting to hurt when I breathed, and I was telling everyone about it. They were like, ‘Oh, you’re probably just nervous.’ And I was like, ‘No, I know what it’s like to be nervous.’”

“It hurt and it hurt and then it got a lot worse. So I started warming up and moving. Then my voice started changing and then it got really scary and then it was too tardy. Like I was next up and I wasn’t going to tell everyone that ‘I can’t fight.’ You know, my family is there. There’s no way I’m going to tell everyone that I’m not fit to fight.”

So instead of forfeiting the fight and heading straight to the nearest emergency room, Bridges stumbled into the DoubleTree Hotel in Sacramento that evening and faced off against another professional boxer, Milton Ramirez, who he later learned had a hole in his lung.

“I had, like, air bubbles in my chest — you could pop them,” Bridges said. “It was terrifying. I was in survival mode during that fight. Like, ‘I could die today.’”

However, Bridges, who had knocked out the first two opponents of his career in the first round, managed not only to last the scheduled four rounds with Ramirez but also to win by unanimous decision (40-36 on all scorecards).

“The doctors checked me out because it was still hurting, and I said, ‘Can you ask them to check my heart?’” he said. “They said everything was fine, but I woke up the next morning and couldn’t even get out of bed. I was in so much pain. So we ran to the doctors and they said, ‘Oh, you have a little tear in your lung.’”

Doctors couldn’t tell Bridges exactly how the tear happened — and no procedure was performed to repair it. “They said because I’m youthful and super hearty, it would heal on its own. But I was in the hospital for four days.”

While it’s a stretch to call the episode a blessing in disguise, Bridges says he learned from the Ramirez fight how to push forward and adapt to less-than-ideal ring conditions, a lesson that carried over into his subsequent fights, when he boxed Miguel Soto-Garcia and then stopped Jabin Chollet in a major upset.

“I learned I had to set up my punches,” Bridges said. “You know, fight smarter. The knockouts aren’t coming the way I thought they were going to come.”

Bridges fought Chollet, a Top Rank fighter who entered with a 9-0 record, in the first six-round fight of his career on the undercard of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s fight with Jaime Munguia on May 4 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas — a huge step for the previously unknown youthful club fighter. He says he was given about a 4 percent chance of beating Chollet.

“But I did my research and saw that he had a really powerful, powerful left hook,” Bridges said. “And my whole game plan was to box intelligent. It wasn’t about knocking him out, but to fight with a higher IQ; fight smarter and stay away from that left hook.”

When Bridges handily outboxed Chollet, winning by unanimous decision — 59-55 twice and 58-56 — it opened up avenues for business beyond the Bay Area, central California and the American West. On Tuesday in Music City, 2,000 miles from home, Bridges will face Brown, whose record is not impressive but who has never been knocked out. If he’s lucky, he’ll add another point to his list of victories — and this time, he might even get to celebrate that feat.

“After the fight, I definitely want to try some Nashville sizzling chicken,” Bridges said. “That’s what’s thrilling me right now.”

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Boxing

Andrew Moloney is confident that if given the chance, he would have beaten Phumelele Cafu and Kosei Tanaka

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Andrew Moloney (left) attacks Pedro Guevara – photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank

Few people were more disappointed than Andrew Moloney when Kosei Tanaka lost his WBO super flyweight belt to Phumelele Cafu at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan on Monday night.

The 33-year-old Australian veteran was hoping to get a shot at beating Tanaka in the lucrative Japanese market.

Those dreams were dashed when South Africa’s Cafu delivered the performance of his life, knocking out Tanaka in the fifth round and finishing the fight strongly, beating the four-weight world champion by split decision.

“The plan was to target the WBO and really chase the Tanaka fight, but it all fell apart on Monday night,” Moloney (26-4-1NC, 16 KO) told The Ring. “I think the WBO is probably still the direction we go, but I’m not sure if they have a rematch clause or if Tanaka will take it. But after watching the fight yesterday, I would be really confident that I could fight one of these guys and win. We would like to follow this path.

“I would love to fight Tanaka in Japan as a four-division world champion. He’s definitely someone I’ve looked up to and wanted to fight for a long time.

“Last night was a little hard to watch. The way he performed, I’m more confident than ever that I have what it takes to beat Tanaka.

I assume there will be a rematch and I hope that Tanaka will regain the belt and I will be able to return to the ring and climb the rankings, and maybe this fight will still happen.

Tanaka entered Moloney’s orbit four years ago when he debuted at 115 pounds. Earlier this year, it looked like they were also on a collision course, with Moloney being number one in the WBO rankings. However, when an offer was made for the vacant IBF lightweight title fight between Vasily Lomachenko and George Kambosos Jr. in May in Perth, Western Australia, Moloney felt he couldn’t turn her down.

This decision ended in disaster. Moloney faced Carlos Cuadras, who withdrew from the fight with a ruptured Achilles tendon and was replaced by Pedro Guevara. Moloney entered the fight with a torn bicep and was largely reduced to boxing with one hand, which circumscribed his punching power.

Still, Moloney felt he did more than enough to win, and was shocked when Guevara was declared the winner by split decision. He was so disappointed that he announced immediately after the fight that he was leaving the ring, but a few days later he withdrew these comments.

It was a breakthrough moment in his career.

“Looking back, it’s a wonderful thing, but watching the Tanaka-Cafu fight made me think that maybe I would do a lot of things if I could turn back time a little bit,” Moloney explained.

“Before my last fight, I was number one in the WBO rankings and I rejected the option of waiting to fight Tanaka. But the opportunity arose to fight Guevara in Australia for the interim WBC title on a major card, and to be candid, I kind of regretted that the Tanaka fight was hanging in the balance, but ultimately we decided to stay busy and take the opportunity to fight in Australia.

“Also, the injury before the fight was another thing I thought about: will I undergo surgery, keep the top spot and wait for Tanaka, but I made the decision to go ahead with the fight with Guevara. Looking back now, maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to do. And looking at the way Tanaka fought last night, I thought maybe I should have waited. I’m sure I could beat Tanaka and take the belt away from him.

“So I take some consolation, but unfortunately you can’t turn back time.”

It’s been a frustrating year for Moloney, but he’s still hitting the gym and his team is working to get him another fight. The window of opportunity to box again this year is closing quickly, but he still hopes to return to the ring in December, most likely in his native Australia.

“I really hope so,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been working on. I have been training strenuous at the gym for some time, quite a few months. I hope to return before the end of the year.

“At this stage it will probably be December. I’m trying to block something, but so far no luck. I’m still training away as if the fight was to take place in December, the team is currently working on it and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll be able to finish it.

“I just hope we can get out before the end of the year, get back into the winner’s circle and start climbing the rankings again.”

Moloney, who fought at bantamweight for the first three years of his professional career before dropping down to super flyweight, surprisingly, said he would even consider moving up to another weight class given the right opportunity.

“It’s a tough time in the super flyweight division,” said Moloney, the eighth challenger to The Ring’s 115-pound title. “There’s a lot going on and it’s always strenuous to plan which route to take because everything changes so quickly. I’d pick Bam Rodriguez to beat Guevara, then there’s talk of a rematch between Kazuto Ioka and Fernando Martinez on Up-to-date Year’s Eve. And then there’s talk of Bama, if they win, fighting the winner of that game in unification. The WBO seems to me the fastest way to win the title, so that’s the path we will follow.

“We have also rejected for some time the idea of ​​moving up to flyweight and getting crack there. There’s also some engaging scene going on there right now, but it’s still uncertain. I’d probably feel a little better at super flyweight, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens with Cafu and Tanaka, but like I said, I’d feel comfortable and confident against either of them, so hopefully he can make it it will happen sooner rather than later.”

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Doubts that fuel 19-year-old Benjamin Johnson

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Despite an impressive amateur resume, welterweight Benjamin Johnson of Springdale, Maryland, enters the professional ring with a shoulder injury.

Johnson will face Kevin Pantoja in a four-round fight at Rosecroft Raceway in Fort Washington, Maryland, promoted by his trainer Lamont Roach Snr’s NoXcuses Promotions. The fight will be broadcast on Saturday on ProBox TV.

Johnson, 1-0 (1 KO), spent just 2:23 in the ring in his professional debut, displaying the quick, aggressive hands that won him multiple national titles. However, 19-year-old Johnson feels an advantage, believing he is being overlooked by his NoXcuses Boxing Gym teammates.

Pantoja, 1-1, 27, has never stopped being a professional – Johnson aims to change that.

“People underestimate me,” Johnson said. “It’s been like that since I was an amateur.”

He added that this underestimation increases his motivation in the gym. Johnson is determined to prove his worth not only to himself, but also to those who doubt him or, worse, don’t recognize him. “I never felt like I was recognized as that guy, so I feel like I’m underappreciated,” Johnson said of his amateur and now professional career.

Johnson sees the fight as a key step in his career, compared to feared forward David Benavidez by some teammates and touted by others as one of the most ready-to-fight prospects in the country.

“I train as much as I can,” Johnson said. “It’s about making a statement. The way you win shows people what you’re capable of, and I’m ready to show my best.

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Benavidez Sr. wants Artur Beterbiev after David Morrell

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Image: Benavidez Sr. Wants Artur Beterbiev After David Morrell

David Benavidez’s father, Jose Benavidez Sr., says he wants undisputed lightweight heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev if he can defeat “regular” WBA champion David Morrell in a Jan. 25 fight.

Jose Senior believes Beterbiew would be a good fight for Benavidez (29-0, 24 KO). He would also like his son to have Dmitry Bivol because it would give him a chance to beat someone who beat Canelo Alvarez in 2022.

Jose Sr. is still bitter that Canelo chose not to fight Benavidez all these years, and recently mentioned a $200 million asking price to fight him. If Bivol loses the rematch with Beterbiev, it is not worth fighting him.

Artur Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KO) will be the guy Benavidez fights if he defeats Bivol in a rematch in 2025. The second fight is still not confirmed, but it is likely.

Benavidez’s worst nightmare would be if Beterbiev lost his rematch with Bivol and then the two fighters met in a trilogy fight. Benavidez will have to wait until the third fight between these fighters takes place before he can claim the belts.

“David’s next fight will be David Morrell. Everyone is very excited about it. We tried to make this fight for three years, but I think David Morrell needed a little more experience to show the world that he deserves this fight,” said Jose Benavidez Sr. Probox TV David Benavidez’s next fight with Cuban David Morrell will take place on January 25.

Of course, Team Benavidez hasn’t tried challenging to fight Morrell over the last three years because they’ve been the ones ignoring him. If they wanted a fight with Morrell, it would have happened a long time ago.

They waited until now, after Morrell’s unimpressive performance against Radivoje Kalajdzic on August 3 at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, before deciding they wanted to fight him.

“David called him and said, ‘Hey, I want to do this fight. Let’s make it happen. It was done right away. I’m very excited to fight a newborn talent, a sturdy fighter, and I think it’s going to be a tough fight,” said Jose Senior on how the fight with Morrell ultimately came about.

I hope we get a chance to fight Beterbiev. He won only on Saturday. Hopefully we can achieve that, but right now our focus is on David Morrell. We have to look impressive to get to the next level,” Benavidez Sr. said.

If Benavidez loses to Morrell, Jose Sr. will have to decide which direction to take his son. Will he move it back to 168 pounds or stay at 175, hoping to win one of the belts after Beterbiev’s vacation?

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