Boxing Challenge: Zuffa Era begins with Opietaia win

   Jai Opietaia's victory over Brandon Glanton was as dominant as one could see, but it could be more significant for what happened outside the ring, as Opietaia was stripped of his IBF cruiserweight title before the bell rang.

In the ring, the bout was forgettable as Opietaia puffed up Glanton's eyes and forehead and did about everything a fighter could do short of scoring a knockdown.

Honestly, the fight could have been stopped in the corner of Glanton in the late rounds, and I would not have complained.

Glanton was penalized for holding and low blows, and somehow Opietaia was penalized for holding, which was the only thing preventing Opietaia from a perfect score with all three judges scoring the fight 119-106 for the Australian.

The real fun was outside the ring where despite paying the sanctioning fees, the IBF still took their title away in a snit over the Zuffa championship.

I'm no Zuffa apologist but this is all on the IBF.

Yes, Dana White (Zuffa head) has made his statement about the boxing status quo but their fighter (Opietaia) has made it clear that he wanted to unify all four titles, and they are trying to make that happen with their cooperation to date.

I could do without the Zuffa title but it's not a major problem yet.

There will be a showdown eventually but for now, Zuffa has played by the standard rules and deserves the recognition of being right.

Boxing Challenge

Ramon Malpica: 26 Pts (1)

Vince Samano: 24 Pts (1)

TRS: 22 Pts (1)

Boxing Challenge

       Only one fight in the boxing challenge, and it's a championship for now, but only until Jai Opietaia enters the ring.

Once he does, the IBF will strip him of their cruiserweight title and only the newly created Zuffa title will be at stake against top ten contender Brandon Glanton.

Cruiserweights,12 Rds 

Jai Opietaia vs Brandon Glanton

Ramon Malpica: Opietaia KO 7

TRS: Opietaia KO 10

Vince Samano: Opietaia KO 6.

Cleaning out the Inbox

     It's time for an inbox cleaning, and we start with a presenter who is about to pull a rare doubleheader in 2026.

Richard Deitsch (who does an excellent podcast) writes for Sports Business Journal about the excellent Premier League host, Rebecca Lowe.

Lowe, who covers the Premier League for NBC Sports, will also be working their Olympic coverage, but the special part comes with Lowe being loaned to Fox Sports for Fox's World Cup broadcasts.

The article covers Lowe's entire career and how she was months away from leaving the profession before being hired by NBC.

Your Mileage May Vary writes of the continuing drop-off in business for the South Carolina tourist attraction, South of the Border.

South of the Border is selling a portion of the facility, so if you have a spare 2.85 million lying around (and if you do, why haven't you offered some to us to go mainstream), you can help revive South of the Border!

MSN.com writes of an unexpected problem at the Winter Olympics- the medals are breaking!

Not the actual medal itself, but the small connector to the medal that allows fabric to go through a loop, allowing it to be worn.

The company that manufactured the medals for the games has offered to fix all medals with this issue.

The legend of Elvis Presley continues to survive, even almost forty-nine years after his death.

The recent release of "Epic- Elvis Presley in Concert" showcases fifty-nine new hours of live footage found stored in a Kansas salt mine.

The article digs deep into Elvis's past, especially how his image has consistently evolved with the times.

The recent ABA documentary on Amazon Prime (which I haven't seen yet) has returned the league to public attention, but what about the small Indiana company that sells the ABA ball?

Lana Sports is a father/son-owned business, and the documentary has caused the sales of the ABA ball to boom.

A percentage of the sales goes to the Dropping Dimes foundation, an organization that helps former ABA players who don't qualify for an NBA pension.

And yes, I own one of these- a mini ball that I won in a Twitter contest from Lana Sports! 

Cleaning out the Inbox: Passings

    The tributes never seem to stop, and this edition brings a top-class offering with one particularly sad story.

Goodbye to Doug Moe at the age of 87. 

Moe was an All-American at North Carolina when he was involved in a point shaving scandal, which he was later cleared of involvement, but he would never play in the NBA, although he would later receive a financial settlement.

Moe would play in the ABA for five seasons for the New Orleans Buccaneers, the 1968-69 champion Oakland Oaks, the Carolina Cougars, and the Virginia Squires before bad knees forced him from the game at thirty-three.

Moe played in three ABA All-Star games as a player before transitioning to coach as an assistant with boyhood friend Larry Brown with both Carolina and Denver before receiving his first head coaching position in 1976 with the San Antonio Spurs, where he would win two division titles in four years.

Moe would move to Denver in 1980, where he would make the playoffs in eight of his nine seasons, win two division titles, and win coach of the year in 1988.

Known for his high-scoring teams, Moe's teams often were rapped for lack of defense, and his final head coaching stop in Philadelphia in 1992 ended with a 19-37 record before he was fired.

Goodbye to Bo Lamar at the age of 74.

The leading scorer in NCAA basketball for Louisiana-Lafayette in the 1971-72 season and two-time first team All-American, Lamar averaged over thirty-one points per game for the Ragin Cajuns, and finished with 3,493 points for his career.

Lamar would be drafted with the first pick of the 1973 ABA draft by the San Diego Conquistadors and was named to the All-ABA team after averaging twenty points per game, which he would repeat in his second season with San Diego.

Lamar would play for Indiana in the ABA's final season after San Diego folded and for the Lakers in the first season after the NBA-ABA merger.

Lamar would be the radio analyst for Louisiana-Lafayette after his playing career.

Goodbye to Rondale Moore at the age of  25.

A second-round draft pick by the Cardinals from Purdue in the 2021 draft, Moore struggled with injuries in his three seasons in Arizona, but still caught 135 passes in those three years.

Moore was on the roster of Atlanta in 2024 and Minnesota in 2025, but didn't appear in a game due to injury.

Moore was a standout at Purdue in 2018 as a sophomore, catching 114 passes for over twelve hundred yards and twelve touchdowns, but would play in only seven games in his only two seasons with the Boilermakers. 

Moore was the key player in Purdue's famous 2018 upset of second-ranked Ohio State, catching twelve passes for 170 yards and two touchdowns in Purdue's 49-20 stunner.

Goodbye to Bobby Douglas at the age of 83.

An Olympic freestyle wrestler for the United States in 1964 and 1968, Douglas handed Dan Gable an 11-1 loss in the 1968 Olympic trials.

Douglas would later become the head coach at Iowa State, where he coached Cael Sanderson, and at Arizona State, where he would win his only national title as a coach in 1988.

Boxing Challenge: Navarrete nails Nunez

      Entering Saturday's junior lightweight title unification match in Glendale, Arizona, most believed it had fight-of-the-year potential, and while it may have fallen short of that status, it was an exciting scrap.

IBF champion Eduardo "Sugar" Nunez was a slight favorite at the start of the fight, but he gave away the first four rounds to WBO boss Emanuel Navarrete in a manner that one would expect from a fan rather than a champion.

An overly respectful Nunez fell behind and never caught up as the larger and more powerful Navarrete backed Nunez up, closed his right eye, and in the tenth, busted the swelling open in gruesome fashion and forced the fight to be stopped before the start of the eleventh round.

Navarrete was the bigger man, the bigger puncher, and for a fighter known for his eccentric style, Navarrete showed some skills that he hadn't in previous fights.

Nunez showed heart and a good chin, but this is the type of battering that can ruin careers, and it will be interesting to see how he performs in his next outing.

Navarrete is now likely to meet Charly Suarez in a WBO-mandated rematch.

Suarez cut Navarrete with a punch in their first fight, but the cut was ruled to be from a butt and would go to the scorecards with Navarrete winning a close technical decision in the eighth round.

Suarez's appeal was successful, and the fight was changed to a no-contest with a rematch ordered.

Suarez accepted step-aside money to allow Navarrete to unify against Nunez, so the rematch will either be next or Navarrete will give up the WBO belt.

In the other challenge bout, veteran Abel Ramos continued his late career comeback with a split decision win over formerly unbeaten Tahmir Smalls.

Smalls led early, Ramos took over late in an entertaining fight.

I had it closer than the judges (96-94 for Ramos) did: 98-92 and 97-93, with the dissenting judge for Smalls at 96-94.

Ramos will likely move into a welterweight eliminator, while Smalls didn't hurt himself in defeat.

Boxing Challenge

Ramon Malpica:  25 Pts(3)

Vince Samano: 23 Pts (0)

TRS: 21 Pts (1)

Browns acquire Tytus Howard from Houston

  The reconstruction of the Cleveland Browns' offensive line began today with a surprising trade with the Houston Texans (Sidebar: doesn't it seem like it's almost always the Texans or the Jacksonville Jaguars with whom the Browns trade?) to acquire Tytus Howard for a fifth-round draft pick in the upcoming draft.

Cleveland traded the fifth-rounder that they acquired from the Las Vegas Raiders for quarterback Kenny Pickett, which is the highest of the three fifth-rounders Cleveland owned before trading for Howard.

Here's the good and bad news on Tytus Howard.

The good news is that, from the Texans writers, Howard was the team's best offensive lineman last season, and Houston did make the playoffs, so he can't be awful.

The bad news is that, depending on the source, the Texans' offensive line was ranked between 24th and 27th, and they were especially poor as run blockers.

Howard had one year remaining on his contract (seventeen and a half million) but immediately signed a two-year extension with the offensive line- starved Browns, so the twenty-nine-year-old Howard is now under team control through the 2028 season.

Howard spent his entire career with Houston after the Texans drafted him in the first round of the 2019 draft (23rd overall) from Division 1-AA Alabama State. He has been durable, playing in 14 or more games in six of his last seven seasons, and is versatile enough to play either guard or right tackle.

Howard spent most of the 2025 season at left guard for Houston, but the early press on the trade mentions Howard as a right tackle, so it could be Howard's job to protect the flank of whoever is the Cleveland quarterback.

The Browns are forced to attempt to plug the offensive line holes (they literally could lose all five starters, unless you count Dawand Jones as a starter, who was injured early in the season) through free agency, trades, and the draft, and All-Pro linemen generally aren't available through the first two avenues.

This means usually teams in this predicament will be paying over value for average players, and I think that's what the Browns have done here.

They are bringing in an average tackle for the first pick in the fifth round and overpaying him a little, but I can't say I hate the move.

I could see the Browns getting through 2026 with Howard at tackle and then moving him inside to guard for the final two years of his contract, where he is better suited.

Boxing Challenge

    Only two fights in the boxing challenge this weekend, but the main event has the potential to be a fight of the year candidate in a unification pairing from Glendale, Arizona, on DAZN.

The junior lightweight battle between WBO champion Emanuel Navarrete and IBF boss Eduardo "Sugar" Nunez could be a match to remember between two hard punchers who aren't afraid to throw a high punch total at their opponent.

Navarrete has the superior resume, but in his last four fights, he has a 1-1-1 record with a no-contest in his last fight against Charly Suarez in a fight in which he was cut by a punch but was initially ruled a headbutt and declared a technical decision winner.

After a Suarez appeal, the fight was changed to a no-contest, and Suarez was ordered to receive an immediate rematch, but Suarez allowed the unification fight to take place for a fee and the right to fight the victor.

Nunez had won all twenty-nine of his victories by KO until his last two bouts, winning by decision in his title win over Masanori Rikishi and his first defense against Christopher Diaz in exciting contests.

This should be a great fight, and it's a 50/50 match with Navarrete having the better past, but Nunez may have the better present form.

The co-feature pits welterweight prospect Tahmir Smalls against former title challenger Abel Ramos.

Smalls fights his first world-class opponent while Ramos returns for the first time since his 2024 draw against Mario Barrios for the WBC welterweight title, which is currently held by Ryan Garcia.

Boxing Challenge

Unification IBF-WBO Junior Lightweight Titles 12 Rds

Eduardo "Sugar" Nunez vs Emanuel Navarrete

Ramon Malpica and TRS: Navarrete Unanimous Decision

Vince Samano: Nunez KO 8

Welterweights. 10 Rds

Abel Ramos vs Tahmir Smalls

R.L: Ramos Split Decision
TRS and V.S: Smalls Unanimous Decision