Bruno Escalante, a former professional boxer and co-owner of Aloha Time Boxing, runs two gyms with trainer Mike Bazzel. They have the original location in San Mateo and a second gym in Pleasant Hill that opened this year. The gyms were the brainchild of Escalante’s manager and friend, Herb Stone, who died in 2017.

Escalante is currently focusing on his juvenile fighters, particularly welterweight contender Steve Canela, who is scheduled to fight on October 12 at the Stockton Arena in California.

“Herb always said, ‘I will do everything in my power to take care of the warrior,’ putting his best interests first,” Escalante recalled. “Bazzel and I have embraced that philosophy and made it our guiding principle in managing and training the warriors.”

Bazzel, a respected cutman in the boxing world, has already made his mark on the sport. “Bazzel has always been great to me,” Escalante said. “When I first met him in 2009, he was very nice and supportive.”

The two developed a close bond when Bazzel was Nonito Donaire’s strength coach and Escalante was a protégé of the future Filipino Sports Hall of Fame inductee.

“There was a spark between us from the very beginning,” Escalante added.

Escalante’s career has been full of ups and downs. After early setbacks, he teamed up with Stone, who helped guide him on his boxing journey. But when a conflict arose involving another fighter Stone managed, Escalante faced the consequences and had to take the show on the road because local fights were harder to come by. He suffered a controversial loss to Oscar Cantu in Texas, and then suffered a tough loss in his next fight to Michael Ruiz Jr. in West Oakland. Stone died suddenly in 2017, leaving Escalante and Bazzel to rebuild.

After a hiatus, Escalante returned to the ring and won key fights, including victories over Javier Gallo and Diuhl Olguin in 2018. He then faced Alexandru Marin on the Superfly III card, losing a split decision that still stings. Many believed Escalante should have been credited with a knockdown or two, but neither were counted.

After his latest career defeat, Escalante focused on the gym and juvenile, promising fighters – Canela was one of them.

Canela started boxing at the age of 22, which Escalante notes is “relatively tardy for a boxer.” Still, Canela has shown remarkable improvement.

“When I met Steve, he was less experienced compared to other competitors. But his commitment and passion for the sport was impressive,” Escalante said.

Canela, a former wrestler who transitioned to boxing after trying MMA, described his transition into the sport this way: “I started with MMA, focusing on wrestling and jiu-jitsu, but when I realized my hands weren’t powerful enough for MMA, I focused on boxing.”

Initially, Canela thought he would return to MMA, but boxing fascinated him.

“I decided to persevere thanks to the wonderful people I met,” he added.

Canela commutes from San Jose to train in San Mateo and Pleasant Hill, making the two-hour round trip four to five times a week. His dedication to boxing is evident, as is his respect for the tough sparring sessions early in his career.

“In the beginning, I fought tough guys like Kristin Vazquez, Charlie Sheehy and Arnold Dinong,” Canela recalls. “That made me realize that if I could take punishment, one day I could give it back.”

Despite being relatively novel to the sport, Steve Canela has already faced top competition in domestic tournaments under the USA Boxing banner. Reflecting on the experience, Canela said, “I was nervous, but my main concern was not letting anyone down.”

Now, he’s set to make his professional debut on October 12, something he’s been waiting for for a long time. Training under Escalante and Bazzel, Canela feels connected to the opulent tradition of boxing.

“I’m lucky to be a part of this system. Bazzel trained Bruno, and now Bruno trains me, along with Arnold, who came through the same system,” Canela said. “It’s like a family tradition, and I’m grateful for the guidance.”

Tim Bradley believes Anthony Joshua had a “system overload” due to the speed at which IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois put him through last Saturday night, saying Joshua didn’t have time to process the mental programming he had been taught by his many trainers over his 11-year career.

(Source: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)

Bradley believes Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) has “evolved” technically with so many different trainers in his career, but with Dubois’ pace, Joshua was overwhelmed and unable to figure out which game plan to exploit.

For all the technical knowledge Joshua had learned, he had no time to search his mind because Dubois had him under fire. Physically, Joshua looked exactly the same as he did when he fought Wladimir Klitschko in 2017.

The difference was that when Dubois knocked Joshua down, he kept attacking him. Klitschko didn’t do that. When he knocked Joshua down, he chose to box and leave him without a hook. That was stupid of Klitschko and he should have won that fight because Joshua was hurt badly from the sixth to the tenth.

If last Saturday’s Dubois were put into a working time machine and transported to 2017, he would have knocked out Joshua, who fought Klitschko.

“AJ has gotten a little better skill-wise. He’s evolved, going through all these coaches. The thing is, when you push him, it’s like overloading the system,” said Tim Bradley Probox TVtalking about how Anthony Joshua gets disoriented and can’t think when he has to fight at a rapid pace, like we saw last Saturday night in his fight with Daniel Dubois.

When a fighter constantly changes coaches, like Joshua did, it gives him too much knowledge and he can’t process it in the same way if he was with one coach from day one. When you only have one coach your whole career, you know what to do.

“He doesn’t know what to do. He has to react quickly, and that requires him to make quick decisions,” Bradley continued of Joshua. “I knew that coming in. Dubois is very good when he’s coming forward. He’s very explosive. He’s got a pendulum bounce. He’ll bounce off and then he’ll come forward very quickly and close the gap on you.”

Joshua’s attitude of having to change trainers every time he loses came back to haunt him, preventing him from handling the high-pressure situation last Saturday. This wouldn’t have happened if Joshua had stuck with the trainer he first turned pro with.

“I think the fight was won from the start. As soon as I saw AJ come out, his chin was up and his hands were down,” Bradley said. “I looked at my wife and said, ‘That’s it. He’s getting ready to have his chin shot off.’ As soon as that right hook landed, he never recovered from that first right hook.”

Joshua seemed to be following his trainer Ben Davison’s game plan of using movement, which was ineffective as it allowed Dubois to attack him and unload with full force. AJ never really got going in the first round before being taken down, and was too injured in the remaining rounds to do much.

“He still looked a little bit like the same AJ, but his chin was up. His hands were down. I don’t know if that had anything to do with the way he was trained. But that was AJ, guys. That’s how it was. He got outplayed, he got out of position, and Dubois came in to win and he showed up.”

This was a 100% rebuilt Joshua, rebuilt to factory specs, who Dubois destroyed. He won not because Joshua was finished, as some people think, but rather because he was fighting a guy with power similar to Wladimir Klitschko. Joshua would have had problems with Dubois earlier in his career.

“One more thing. This is the first punch since AJ fought Ruiz [in 2019]”He ain’t fought nobody who can punch. Think about it. His first real boxer, bro. He ain’t fought nobody who can punch that strenuous,” Bradley said.

AJ had faced one great puncher, Francis Ngannou, in the past five years since his second fight with Andy Ruiz. But Ngannou, a boxing novice with one pro fight under his belt, had no skill and didn’t know how to exploit the power he had in his fight with Joshua last March. Aside from Ngannou, Joshua hadn’t fought anyone who could punch, which allowed him to do well.

Joshua’s opponents since Ruiz:

-Daniel Dubois
-Francis Ngannou
-Otto Wallin
—Robert Helenius
-Jermaine Franklin
– Oleksandr Usyk x 2
– Kubrat Pulev

By: Sean Crose

Boxing is a brutal sport – a brutal, sometimes deadly sport. All fighters know that, but there are those who struggle to call it a career, regardless. The desire to stay in the ring can be especially forceful when the fighter in question has had a very successful career. The list of fighters who have lasted too long is long. No one wants another fighter to stay longer than they should have. That’s why former heavyweight champion and world star Anthony Joshua should seriously consider retirement after suffering a devastating defeat at the hands of Daniel Dubois with gloves in his hometown of London last weekend.

Look, boxers get beat up — sometimes demanding. It’s not just part of the sport, but it doesn’t guarantee a life of misery for the fighters who take the beating. But Joshua has been beaten up many times — and by world-class fighters. While no one is saying that Dubois and Andy Ruiz (who also scored a brutal win over Joshua in 2019) are this generation’s Ali and Frazier, they are both world-class professional fighters who faced and beat Joshua while in their prime. Dubois and Ruiz are not tomato cans. Their punches hurt. And both men have done Joshua significant damage.

Then there’s Joshua’s incredible fight with former champion Wladimir Klitschko. Although he won the fight in great style, Joshua was crushed so badly by former champion Klitschko that he collapsed and was nearly finished off. Again, the guy got hurt in what turned out to be a classic slugfest. All of this is to say that Joshua didn’t just take a lot of punches, he took a lot of punches from the best in the business. I’ve long maintained that boxing is not an immoral endeavor as long as the long-term safety of the fighters is the highest priority. Joshua may have another fight or two, but now his long-term safety is at risk. The guy has simply taken too much damage to ignore reality.

Does this mean Joshua will retire? Maybe not. Maybe he’ll stay and prove to the world that he DID NOT HAVE to retire. But finding out is a risky investment for Joshua at this point. Here’s a prayer the guy makes the right choice.