0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/19/2017
Daniel Jacobs gave Gennady Golovkin the fight of his life, and may even have deserved to win. But on Saturday night on HBO Pay-Per-View, Golovkin escaped with the close decision in a tense, tactical contest. Jacobs, a big, fast middleweight with a technical pedigree who has overcome worse than Golovkin — that is, cancer — gave […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/18/2017
It was a super-close, ultra-competitive, gory spectacle between Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and pound-for-pound #1 Roman Gonzalez, but in the end Saturday night, probably the wrong guy won, as Rungvisai took Gonzalez’s undefeated record by decision. The scorecards going to Rungvisai tarnished what was an extraordinarily awesome battle, one of the bloodiest fights you’ll ever see. […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 3/16/2017
Last Saturday night, from Verona, New York, HBO gave the world a physics lesson, just as their “friends” at Premier Boxing Champions had done the previous week. What we saw was the difference between Kinetic energy and Potential energy. Kinetic energy is energy in action. It’s the energy generated in motion. Potential energy is the […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/12/2017
David Lemieux frighteningly knocked out Curtis Stevens Saturday night on HBO, winning the contest of huge punchers with a left hand that left Stevens out cold for what seemed like two or three hours. The middleweight bout promised to feature big shots, but after another amazing knockout Friday, it wasn’t a sure thing it would deliver […]
LONDON, ENGLAND – MARCH 04: Tony Bellew celebrates an 11th round TKO victory over David Haye after their Heavyweight contest at The O2 Arena on March 4, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
0 comments by Andrew Harrison on 3/5/2017
On an emotional night at London’s O2 Arena (the former Millennium Dome in Greenwich), logic took a back seat as Tony “Bomber” Bellew overcame red hot favorite David Haye in eleven dramatic rounds at heavyweight that not even the most hackneyed screenwriter could have conjured up. Former Hollywood star Bellew continued to erase memories of […]
NEW YORK, NY – MARCH 04: Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia exchange punches during their WBA/WBC Welterweight unification Championship bout at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York on March 4, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
0 comments by Tim Starks
One of the year’s most anticipated fights failed to deliver on its promise, as Keith Thurman on Saturday won a narrow decision in a mostly-limp showdown with Danny Garcia that aired on CBS. The long-awaited welterweight match-up started well enough, with Thurman coming out like old-school aggressive Thurman, and actually hurting Garcia, who doesn’t get […]
BIRMINGHAM, AL – FEBRUARY 25: Izu Ugonoh (L) and Dominic Breazeale (R) fight in a heavyweight bout at Legacy Arena. (Photo by David A. Smith/Getty Images)
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 2/26/2017
I started this write-up by looking for a synonym for “clumsy.” I didn’t find one that fit, unfortunately. Tonight at the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Ala. on Premier Boxing Champions on Fox, Deontay Wilder (38-0, 37 KO) notched another victory to the thrill of his local crowd (everything is local in Alabama, trust me). Wilder scored […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 2/19/2017
Adrien Broner promised a new A.B., but he was still the same guy as always Saturday night on Showtime: a physical talent who looks like he’ll never deliver on his promise, as he nearly lost to a less-talented grinder, Adrian Granados. At least this kind of Broner ensures we get solid action. Broner won a […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 2/16/2017
“Pleasant” isn’t the word many people associate with a boxer’s training camp, one of the most physically taxing periods of time a human being can endure. But it’s exactly the word Lamont Peterson used to describe his training camp in advance of this weekend’s fight. There’s a good reason for that word making a cameo. […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 2/9/2017
There’s an apocryphal story about the first meeting when Bernie Ecclestone took over Formula 1. As it goes, Enzo Ferrari dragged the dwarvish Brit into his office to let him know what was what. Enzo slammed his hand on the desk and said, “THIS is the sport!” then tapped his finger under the desk and […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 1/29/2017
Action heroes are special. There are precious few of them in any generation. We like to pretend that every fight was an event, but mostly they are like any other fighter except for a few great nights. Mickey Ward was in his share of dreck fights. So was Arturo Gatti. We aren’t supposed to say […]
Carl Frampton and Leo Santa Cruz during the XX round of their WBA featherweight title fight at MGM Grand Garden Arena on January 28, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
0 comments by Tim Starks
Between their two fights, and within them, Leo Santa Cruz vs Carl Frampton has been like a goddam lava lamp, shifting, evolving, never settling on one hard shape. In their excellent rematch Saturday on Showtime, it was Santa Cruz who showed the newest dimensions, and he won, barely, and justly. Watching these two men feed off […]
LAS VEGAS, NV – JANUARY 28: Referee Tony Weeks directs Mikey Garcia (R) to a neutral corner after he knocked out Dejan Zlaticanin in the third round of their WBC lightweight title fight at MGM Grand Garden Arena on January 28, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
0 comments by Tim Starks on 1/28/2017
Before a two-year-plus layoff, Mikey Garcia showed he was a brilliant all-around fighter, capable of outboxing you, helping you catch some Zs or both in the same night. Guess what? He’s still that guy. Taking on the #2 man in the lightweight division after just one rust-shedding bout, Garcia scored what will be hard to […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 1/27/2017
So far, so good for 2017 in boxing, eh? Got us feeling like Scrooge McDuck this weekend. Carl Frampton vs Leo Santa Cruz II, Saturday, Showtime, Las Vegas. Showtime’s hot streak of great match-ups continues with a re-pairing of two men who shared the ring for a Fight of the Year-caliber bout. Frampton won the […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 1/18/2017
Embarrassingly, I spent last Friday night watching Yuri Foreman get knocked out by Erislandy Lara. The fight was terrible, and the knockout punch was sneaky good, but nothing like the destructive mesmerization I seek. Normally I’d forget that I’d been foolish enough to watch it and move on with my life, but over the weekend, […]
