0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 11/15/2020
Calculating precisely where Terence Crawford fits along the spectrum of boxing’s superstars is something of a fool’s errand and, if we’re being honest with ourselves, entirely beside the point. No sport is more tribal, more random in the focus of its fan adoration, nor more fickle in ascribing value to fundamentally flawed human beings — […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 11/1/2020
Eleven years ago, David Haye challenged Nikolai Valuev in Nuremberg, Germany, in a heavyweight title bout that likely represented the greatest size disparity in modern boxing. Valuev, “The Russian Giant,” stood 7′ tall and weighed in well north of 300 pounds. Haye, a former cruiserweight, who had blown himself up to a career-high 217 pounds […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 10/18/2020
The gift of the truly great megafight comes around roughly as often as Halley’s Comet, a once-in-a-lifetime galactic event — an almost-spiritual happening that, for those of us inclined toward these things, helps us better understand the human experience and ground our presence within the cosmos. But there’s a hard truth that’s compulsively forgotten, again […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 9/22/2020
The boxing business wasn’t built for fighters like Jose Pedraza. The 31-year-old Puerto Rican junior welterweight has been an Olympian, a prospect with some heat and, if you’re into that kind of thing — and you know you are, you little minx — a titleholder at 130 and 135 pounds. Not too shabby. But nothing […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 8/17/2020
Even in the age of social distancing, you can scarcely swing a dead cat without hitting a boxer who doesn’t have a little resentment coming to him. Fighters are hard men with pocked histories. Boxing is known for its boozers, gamblers, junkies, abusers and general dirtbaggery. Self-promotion too often falls somewhere on the spectrum between […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 7/26/2020
We’ve had ourselves a year, huh? It’s only July, I know, but aren’t all of us reaching to throw in the towel on 2020 right now? COVID. Kobe. Thirty years of Cops squeezed into a two-week off-off-Broadway shitshow. Existential dread surrounds us like Confederate Flags at a Charlie Daniels concert. (Alas, now we’re denied even […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 6/17/2020
When it comes to grim irony, not even the back-stabbiest of Greek tragedies holds a candle to boxing. In this sport, titans fall, fortunes are squandered and, like clockwork, dreams are splintered on the rocks of reality — all inside a space as cozy as a Little Caesar’s lobby. Had he cared to look, bantamweight […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 3/2/2020
For more than a year now, the conversation around Mikey Garcia’s prospects at 147 pounds could be summed up with a single theoretical question: skills or size? Even with the relatively recent proliferation of divisions and titles in boxing (not to mention meat-slab-building performance-enhancers), the goalposts can be moved only so far. At some point, […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 2/3/2020
In the winking, cloak-and-dagger-and-big-ass-laser spy classic “Goldfinger,” an unforgettable exchange between Sean Connery and Gert Fröbe sets the template for an iconic cinema franchise and, somewhat oddly, got me thinking about the role of Mike Dallas Jr. in Saturday’s fight with Yordenis Ugas on Fox Sports 1. In the scene, Fröbe’s Auric Goldfinger has captured […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 1/12/2020
Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re pretty easy. You get what I’m saying: loose. But consider it a compliment. You’re always down to party. You’re low-maintenance. Agreeable. Even in this modern environment of seemingly endless entertainment options, your viewing standards for a fight are admirably … squishy. When you, the consummate boxing fan, […]
iNov 2, 2019; Las Vegas, NV, USA; Canelo Alvarez (blue/green trunks) knocks out Sergey Kovalev (black/white/red trunks) during their WBO light heavyweight title bout at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Alvarez won via 11th round TKO. Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 12/29/2019
Somewhere in the memory banks, wedged between a 7,000-piece Millennium Falcon LEGO set and a fuzzy “Best of Christy Canyon” VHS tape, you’ll find a yellowed paperback copy of “The Sun Also Rises” — a remnant from Mrs. Nelson’s eighth-grade English Lit class. The novel, published in 1926, chronicles a very particular time and place, […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 12/16/2019
Because the world is a straightforward, uncomplicated place and because nuance and consideration are for suckers and Democrats, it should come as no surprise that we, as an undivided boxing nation, awoke Sunday morning to yet another fully formed, collective realization: Vasiliy Lomachenko is the best fighter on the planet, and if you think otherwise […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 12/9/2019
Emanuel Navarrete is in a hurry. Fast hands, CompuBox-busting punch volume, on to the next thing — quickly. He leaps into jabs, straight right hands and even sweeping hooks, the sooner to unspool his go-go gadget arms and put hands on his intended target. Let’s go. Glove up. Ring the bell. Patience? That’s for 12-rounders […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 12/7/2019
A plaque at the foot of the Golden Gate Hotel & Casino — downtown, where Freemont intersects Main — commemorates the first telephone installed in the city of Las Vegas. It belonged to Charles “Pop” Squires, a publisher and local pioneer who was known around town as “Mr. Las Vegas” — long before Wayne Newton […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 11/24/2019
As I watched Luis Ortiz crumble to the canvas Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, something struck me as familiar. It was his face. Not the unique contours of Ortiz’s cinder block head or Chubby Thanos chin — but his expression. Eyes slung sideways. Lips drawn tightly over teeth. Neck flexing vainly […]
