Who said sequels are duds?
Back on his home canvas for the second time this year, Robert Easter, Jr., delivered the biggest win of his star-bound career Friday night at the Huntington Center.
Toledo’s favorite boxing son passed his most onerous — and thrilling — exam, defending his International Boxing Federation lightweight championship in a unanimous decision over Denis Shafikov.
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The 12-round bout went the distance, longer than Easter predicted. The lithe fighter with the impossible reach — a 76-inch span longer than that of some heavyweights — struggled to use his advantage, trading shots with the 5-foot-5 Russian all night. The six minutes between the final bell and the announcement of the verdict felt like six hours.
Yet the result was the same as always. When the ringside announcer declared, “Winner and still world champion ... ” Easter (20-0) raised his arms and the modest but spirited crowd lost it.
If this was Easter’s last curtain call in Toledo, how sweet it was.
“After this, he’s going to New York or Las Vegas, bigger and better things,” event promoter Ravone Littlejohn said. “People might not know, but this is probably one of the last times you’ll see him fight here.”
If there was any downer Friday, it was the half-filled arena, proving you can have too much of a great thing.
Easter’s first championship defense here in February was a talk-of-the-town showstopper, the biggest fight night in Toledo since 1919, when Jack Dempsey maimed Jess Willard in a temporary 97,000-seat stadium at Bay View Park for the heavyweight championship.
Boxing, dead? Not here. Easter’s transcendent local stardom coupled with the novelty of a title fight inspired a scene straight from another time. Missing only was a newsboy crying, “Extra! Extra! Hometown champ gives enemy pugilist the business!” More than 8,000 fans crammed into the Huntington Center while a staggering 1.5 million viewers tuned in on Bounce TV.
The spectacle was so good, so electric, so fun, that the original plan to hold Easter’s next title defense elsewhere was scrapped in favor of another homecoming.
An encore that may have been rushed back too soon.
It is not that Easter’s popularity has waned. It is just the opposite. His support soaring as he becomes the latest star in a weight class that counts many of the sport’s titans — Roberto Duran, Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Manny Pacquiao — among its championship lineage.
It is that fans who spent hundreds of dollars to attend Easter’s first home fight can’t reasonably be expected to do the same just four months later. You see the prices Friday night? Tickets ranged from $37 to $227 — up from $30 to $200 — which is standard, second-mortgage pricing in the boxing world but a harder sell in our market, especially with the fight on TV. Previously, the priciest ticket in the eight-year history of the Huntington Center ran $195. That was for front row center at an Eagles concert.
Huntington Center general manager Steve Miller called the quick turnaround a “lesson learned.”
“We’d love to keep having him here. It’s great for the community,” he said. “You look at the concerts, they don’t come every year, they come every couple years or 36 months. They keep themselves fresh. Robert’s different because he’s the hometown kid. But sometimes you can’t do the same thing over and over again, especially at these ticket prices.”
The promoter, too, conceded the storm Friday was less than perfect.
“The IBF wanted us to do the fight and Robert wanted to defend his title,” said Littlejohn, the CEO of About Billions Promotions. “We knew doing it this fast, it probably wouldn't do as well as the first fight. If it was up to us, I wouldn’t have brought him back here until next year or maybe the end of the year.”
And if it was up to us, we would have dialed back the ticket prices. But strangely enough, About Billions did not ask.
All the same, Easter and those who were there more than made the best of the night.
The next chapter is Easter unifying his IBF belt, meaning vanquishing the title holder in one of the three other sanctioning bodies that govern pro boxing: Terry Flanagan (WBO), Jorge Linares (WBA), or Mikey Garcia (WBC). The bouts most want to see are either an across-the-pond showdown against the unbeaten Flanagan — who Easter has said he would fight in his native England — or a blockbuster against Garcia. Perfect with 30 knockouts, Garcia is moving up to 140 pounds for a crack next month at former four-division champ Adrien Broner in Brooklyn, N.Y. But he intends to move back to lightweight.
For Easter, it is on to bigger and brighter stages. It’s sure been some kind of fun.
Contact David Briggs at: dbriggs@theblade.com, 419-724-6084 or on Twitter @DBriggsBlade.
First Published July 1, 2017, 5:41 a.m.
