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NEW YORK — Abdullah Mason didn’t panic.
Down for the first time in any of his combined 95 amateur and professional fights, the poised prodigy responded exactly how he and his father/trainer, Valiant Mason, mentally and physically prepared him in the gym. Mason, perhaps boxing’s top prospect among Americans, popped up from one knee, quickly regained his composure and went to work after getting dropped just 48 seconds into his 10-round fight against Yohan Vasquez on Nov. 8 in Norfolk, Virginia.
A picture-perfect left uppercut by Mason knocked Vasquez flat on his back a mere 33 seconds later. As quickly as promoter Top Rank’s executives and matchmakers moved to the edges of their ringside seats at Scope Arena, Mason calmed them down.
The 20-year-old Cleveland native landed another left uppercut, which knocked Vasquez off balance. By then, it seemed Mason might take out the rugged Dominican less than two minutes after he surprisingly went down himself.
But then Vasquez countered Mason with a left hook similar to the first one that dropped him and sent him to the canvas a second time. Mason used his left glove again to keep himself from going all the way down, with 1:02 to go in the first round.
Mason wasn’t badly hurt after either knockdown, which enabled him to retake control of the action.
Once the second round began, Mason, mature beyond his years, went right back to his game plan, as if that frenetic first round hadn’t happened. A well-placed left to Vazquez’s body dropped him to one knee, temporarily paralyzed him and caused referee Brent Bovell to wave an end to their fight at 1:59 of the second round.
Mason’s calmness under duress reinforced everything his father had instilled in him and his four boxing brothers.
“I definitely had the confidence to know that if I were to get caught with something like that, I would be able to come back and do what I did,” Mason told Uncrowned. “But I wouldn’t say that I thought about getting caught with it. I would say just the training in the gym, we had trained for tense moments inside the ring. So when that happened, you know, I was mentally prepared for it.
“When you’re training, it’s all mental. Anybody can go through the physical part. Everybody can be as in shape as you can and, you know, have the most endurance, you know, great footwork. But if you’re not thinking in there under pressure, it’s gonna show how high your IQ is. And I feel like, you know, that was a little bit of pressure for me that night. I thought it through, and I got the job done.”
The resilient Mason’s comeback from those two knockdowns prevented a promotional problem for Bob Arum’s company. The resolve Mason demonstrated amid the first real adversity of his career encouraged Top Rank’s decision-makers to bring him back to the ring relatively quickly.
The skillful, strong southpaw is set to meet Manuel Jaimes in an eight-rounder Friday on the Denys Berinchyk-Keyshawn Davis undercard at Madison Square Garden’s Theater. The bout between Mason (15-0, 13 KOs) and Jaimes (16-2, 11 KOs), of Stockton, California, will be streamed by ESPN+ at approximately 7:30 p.m. ET, about 90 minutes before the three-bout broadcast headlined by Ukraine’s Berinchyk (19-0, 9 KOs) and Norfolk’s Davis (12-0, 8 KOs, 1 NC) will begin on ESPN.
“Based on his last fight, he has to control his anxiousness to get in there and throw punches with reckless abandon, especially as you rise in level of opponents,” Carl Moretti, Top Rank’s vice president of boxing operations, told Uncrowned. “You know, guys aren’t gonna be intimidated as much by the fact that they’re fighting you. Veteran guys, guys like [Jaimes] on Friday, I’m sure he’s seen this type of thing before. So it’s just a matter [for Mason] of controlling it, being patient and letting his natural skills take over, instead of feeding into the crowd and trying to blast a guy out of there right from the start.”
Jaimes, 24, lost a 10-round unanimous decision to former WBA super lightweight champ Rolando “Rolly” Romero (16-2, 13 KOs) in his previous fight. Romero defeated Jaimes by the same comfortable margin, 99-91, on all three scorecards Sept. 14 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“He likes to fight, for sure,” Mason said. “If you get in there and bang with him, he gonna bang with you for sure. He lets his hands go. He box a little bit, but I’d say that’s one thing — he likes to fight. You know, if I step in there with him, he like to trade. So I gotta fight smart.”
Mason has worked on the “minute” technical mistake that caused both knockdowns versus Vasquez. If Jaimes hits him with an impactful punch as well, Mason is more confident than ever that he can overcome troublesome moments.
The devout Muslim isn’t concerned, either, that those two knockdowns have diminished his standing within the industry.
“I look at it like it’s boxing,” Mason said. “It happens. You can’t think of it as a bad thing. I mean, you see what happened after I got knocked down, so that’s how you come back from something like that. It lets you know what’s to come. I feel like that let me know that there’s a lot more that I can prepare for, rather than, you know, that happening and me not being prepared for it and me reacting a different way.”
Preparation has been the most important component of Mason’s ascension in both the professional and amateur ranks since his father first brought him to the gym at age 9.
Valiant Mason didn’t necessarily think five of his six sons would become boxers. He introduced Amir, Adel, Abdur-Rahman, Abdullah and Ibrahim to the sport primarily to instill discipline and give them something constructive to do.
Now that it’s the family business, they push one another during strength and conditioning workouts, sparring sessions and fights.
“A lot of people don’t have the privilege to train in the gym with their brothers and father every day,” Mason said. “I take things from my brothers, and they take things from me. It tightens me up and allows me to see certain scenarios in the ring that people can’t see because, you know, I got four brothers [that box], and they all got something different in their styles. I take this from this brother, I take that from that brother, and that’s five sets of eyes in the gym.”
The Mason family moved from Cleveland to Las Vegas during the COVID-19 pandemic. They trained there for two years before they returned to Cleveland.
Abdullah Mason made his pro debut in November 2021 because he didn’t want to trudge through another Olympic cycle. He could’ve qualified to compete in Tokyo in the summer of 2021, but he wasn’t old enough for open-class competition at that time.
Mason believed he had a style better suited for professional boxing anyway, which he has demonstrated over the past three years. He hopes an impressive victory over Jaimes will mark the beginning of a successful 2025.
Assuming the heavily favored fighter wins in style, the mild-mannered Mason has no intention of taking to social media to start calling out whoever wins the Berinchyk-Davis fight for Berinchyk’s WBO lightweight title: WBC 135-pound champion Shakur Stevenson (22-0, 10 KOs) or WBA champ Gervonta “Tank” Davis (30-0, 28 KOs). Mason realizes he must make some improvements and gain more experience before he can satisfy his “Appetite For Smoke,” a promotional statement he has embroidered on apparel.
“My father raised me and my brothers to be an honest person in anything that you do,” Mason said. “You make sure that you’re focused. There’s no need to do all that. When you’re being yourself, that attracts more positivity and attracts what’s for you. I know what I wanna attract, and I put out that same thing, and this is what I’m getting in return. I’m a good fighter who’s focused, and I’m looking for the graduation right now.
“So there’s no need to do all that extra stuff. As long as we’re doing extra in the gym, it’ll show. We’re just sticking to what we do. A lot of fighters are gonna talk and do what they do to promote the fight. I have nothing against them for that. When we step in the ring, that’s a whole other game. You gotta be ready for whatever you put out, whatever you speak. You gotta be ready for that when you step in there and back everything up.”