In many ways, the last few weeks have been somewhat of a throwback: a bombastic homage to a time when, somewhat apocryphally perhaps, top fighters were matched with their fiercest rivals and fans could expect to see the best facing off against the best with brutal regularity. Floyd Mayweather’s decision to take on arguably his toughest […]

For a sport ensconced in the visceral, bound up with the most primitive forms of human interaction, professional prizefighting comes with a surprisingly lengthy set of criteria for those wishing to get ahead. Its participants are tacitly expected to tick a range of boxes if they are to succeed, with the chosen few ushered smoothly […]

(Gennady Golovkin, left, Matthew Macklin, right; photo credit: GeoIMAGEZ) When Max Kellerman stated during Saturday night’s HBO broadcast of Mikey Garcia vs. Juan Manuel Lopez that his top-ranked lightweight fighter in the world was none other than Terence Crawford, it set more than a few eyebrows into vertical motion. The man he was praising, after […]

(September 8, 2012; Oakland, CA, USA; Andre Ward [red gloves] fights Chad Dawson [blue gloves] during the super middleweight championship at ORACLE Arena. Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports) Underachievement is an emotive word in boxing, perhaps more so than in any other sport. After all, how exactly do you tell a guy he hasn’t tried […]

(credit: Tom Casino, Showtime) So it looks like we have a new superstar — a new Manny Pacquiao, if you choose to believe the CEO of the company that promotes him. Lucas Matthysse, the taciturn, mysterious Argentinian who for so long lurked on the fringes of the fans’ consciousness at 140, popping up here and there […]

(Paulie Malignaggi, left, jaws with his June 22 opponent, Adrien Broner) It’s strange for me to see Paulie Malignaggi these days, basking in the heat of the Indian summer his career is currently enjoying. After all, he was never meant to get this far. He was meant to fade into obscurity a long time ago, […]

(Angel Garcia, yelling about something, as his son Danny looks on) Remember the days when you used to wish that you’d one day grow up to be as big and tough as your dad? Remember trying to practice after he taught you how to throw a punch, only to get bored after a couple of […]