Boxing

Fight of the Year?

Featured image Last night 19,000 fight fans packed Madison Square Garden for a title bout. Dave Portnoy said the pre-fight atmosphere “may be the most electric environment I have ever been in.” Here is his brief video shot shortly before the action began: Msg is ELECTRIC pic.twitter.com/wrYyHDOzlR — Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 1, 2022 One of the fighters was Irish and the other a Puerto Rican from New York, so there was »

Alvarez Joins the Pantheon [Updated]

Featured image Last night, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fought Billy Joe Saunders before 73,000 fans (mostly Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, I assume) in the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium, the largest crowd ever to watch a boxing match indoors. Saunders is no cupcake: he came into the fight with a 30-0 record, holding the WBO super middleweight belt. Saunders, like Tyson Fury, is “traveler,” or, as he says, a gypsy. He is also naturally a slightly »

Marvelous Marvin, RIP

Featured image Marvin Hagler, one of the greatest middleweights in ring history, died yesterday at age 66. Hagler reigned as undisputed middleweight champion from 1980 to 1987 and finished with a record of 62-3-2. Hagler retired after a close and hotly disputed loss to Sugar Ray Leonard and refused all offers to come back. He walked away with his faculties intact and with most of his money, and worked thereafter as an »

A Christmas Story

Featured image I posted this, my favorite Christmas story, in 2012. It harkens back to a better time, or, at least, a more inspiring one. Some years ago, the sportswriter Rick Reilly wrote: You can take all your Tiny Tims and your Grinches and your Miracles on Whatever Street and stuff them in your stocking. The best Christmas story is about a boxer. It starts the day in 1918 when a doctor »

One of the Great Performances in Heavyweight History

Featured image Last night, Britain’s Tyson Fury stopped Deontay Wilder of Alabama in the seventh round, taking Wilder’s WBC world heavyweight crown. Both fighters entered the bout undefeated. Wilder was 42-0-1, with 41 knockouts–the highest KO percentage in heavyweight history. Fury came in at 29-0-1. The only blemish on either fighter’s record was the draw they fought to in December 2018. Their 2018 encounter was a great, classic fight. Fury dominated, but »

Best Heavyweight Fighter Ever?

Featured image If you are not familiar with Tyson Fury, he is a British boxer currently rated the best heavyweight in the world. He weighed one pound when born prematurely in 1988. His father nevertheless named him, optimistically, after Mike Tyson. Fury’s ancestry is mostly Irish and he is a gypsy; one of his nicknames is The Gypsy King. His family has included a number of fighters. Fury started out small, but »

Alvarez-Jacobs [Updated with Post-Mortem]

Featured image The biggest fight of 2019 (so far) is tonight, in Las Vegas. It features the biggest name in boxing, Canelo Alvarez, who recently signed the richest contract in the history of sports with DAZN, a European subscription-based organization. Alvarez, 51-1-2, will put his middleweight titles on the line against Danny Jacobs, 35-2, who holds the IBF belt, so the fight will give us a unified middleweight champion. Alvarez is the »

Changing of the Middleweight Guard

Featured image I previewed last night’s rematch between Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez here. The bout turned out to be an epic battle that exceeded the fighters’ original performance almost exactly one year ago. Almost every round could have been scored either way. A year ago, Golovkin won the fight rather clearly but was victimized by the judges, and the fight was scored a draw. This time, the fight was just about »

GGG – Alvarez II

Featured image The biggest fight of 2018 will take place Saturday night in Las Vegas. It is the long-awaited rematch between Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin (Triple G) and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for the unified and undisputed middleweight championship of the world. Golovkin and Alvarez fought one year ago in the most-hyped bout of 2017. I remember it well: my son got married that night, on an island in a northern lake that miraculously »

Truax Delivers Stunning Upset In Great Day for Minnesota Boxing

Featured image Minnesota has never been near the center of the boxing world. Until last night, the state had produced only one world title-holder since 1917. But Caleb Truax, the best Minnesota fighter of his generation, changed that with an epic upset over IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale in DeGale’s home town, London. I’ve seen the odds on the fight everywhere between 11 to 1 and 100 to one. Suffice it »

Fight of the Decade: Golovkin vs. Alvarez

Featured image The most eagerly-awaited boxing match in years will take place tomorrow night, when Saul “Canelo” Alvarez challenges Gennady (GGG) Golovkin for the undisputed middleweight title of the world in Las Vegas. Golovkin (37-0) has never been beaten and has never been knocked down. Alvarez (49-1-1) has lost only once, to Floyd Mayweather. Golovkin is from Kazakhstan, where he started fighting as a child. He boxed extensively as an amateur, compiling »

Mayweather-McGregor

Featured image Last night’s much-anticipated fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor was a triumph of marketing. It was strictly a novelty show; there was no title at stake. Nevertheless, thanks largely to tireless promotion by the fighters, it generated world-wide interest. I haven’t yet seen the numbers, but millions were expected to buy the Showtime program, and it was the most heavily-bet boxing match in history. Surprisingly, it also turned out »

Klitschko-Joshua: One of the Greatest Fights Ever

Featured image Today–or tonight, as it was in London–heavyweights Wladimir Klitschko and Anthony Joshua combined for one of the greatest fights of modern times. Klitschko, at 41, is one of the great heavyweight champions. He held the undisputed title for nearly ten years, second only to Joe Louis. Klitschko came into the fight at 64-4. It is hard to root against Klitschko. He and his brother Vitali–also a former heavyweight champion–dominated the »

Golovkin-Jacobs Recap

Featured image Last night’s big fight between GGG, Gennady Golovkin, and Danny Jacobs ended in the most unexpected way possible–with a decision. It was the first time in something like eight or nine years that either fighter had gone the distance. It was an excellent fight–I will stop just short of calling it a great fight–that could have gone either way. Golovkin won a unanimous decision, with two judges scoring it 115-112 »

Golovkin-Jacobs

Featured image Tomorrow night at Madison Square Garden, the most anticipated fight in years (by me, anyway) will take place: Gennady Golovkin vs. Danny Jacobs for the world middleweight title. I asked my son Eric, who manages boxers in his spare time, to preview the bout. He in turn consulted his friend Caleb Truax, the best Minnesota fighter of the current generation. I’ll start with their thoughts: Tomorrow night, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin »

The next great boxing movie?

Featured image Boxing has been a staple of Hollywood since before I was born. And why not? The drama of boxing matches and the back story of the game are tailored made for the big screen. The most famous boxing movie is “Rocky” (1976), the first in that long series. The most critically acclaimed is “Raging Bull” (1980), Jake LaMotta’s story as told by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro. The »

Golovkin-Brook

Featured image Tomorrow night (British time) middleweight champ Gennady Golovkin will fight IBF welterweight title-holder Kell Brook at the O2 Arena in London. It’s an intriguing matchup. GGG is, of course, one of the sport’s most devastating punchers. Golovkin fought his way out of a mining town in Kazakhstan and is now 35-0 with 32 knockouts. He is, in my opinion, the most exciting boxer in the world. Golovkin, the anti-Floyd Mayweather, »