0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 10/30/2019
Watching a man die isn’t as difficult as you’d imagine. Show up to the arena a little late — before the big fights start, but after the clubbers have taken their clumsy swings. Climb into the rafters and putter around the empty rows in search of a suitable view. Fall into your seat and scan […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 10/13/2019
Oleksandr Usyk contains multitudes. Scratch that. Not multitudes. Magnitudes. The 32-year-old Ukrainian lineal cruiserweight champ-turned-heavyweight contender is guided by two indomitable polar forces, and he brings them to bear with magnetic energy, a twinkle in his maniacal eyes, and a gnashing of his gap-toothed grin. He’d be as comfortable wearing a Kievan Rus war helmet, […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 9/29/2019
It’s hard not to think about Michael Grant. Two decades ago, Grant was boxing’s latest next big thing. A chiseled, athletic 6-foot-7 250-pounder with an 86-inch reach, Grant was a radioactive-spider-bitten unicorn — a powerful, athletic American heavyweight. Born in Chicago, he would have appeared just as formidable a figure rushing the quarterback off the […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 9/25/2019
Sometimes, the forming of a more perfect union requires the separation of a rib or three. At least that’s what our politicians would have us believe. Bureaucrats, wonks, and snake-oil salesmen love nothing more than co-opting the language of boxing (“I’ll fight for you!”), but believe it or not, some pols have actually gone so […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 9/15/2019
It’s tempting to view boxing as the ultimate meritocracy. On Forbes’ annual World’s Highest Paid Athletes list, a fighter routinely cracks the top five — and often leads the way, with Floyd Mayweather recently banking nearly a third of a billion dollars in a single calendar year. Social media directly connects fans to fighters, promoters […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 8/26/2019
Biologists have a name for it: Thanatosis. In the animal realm, certain species will exhibit, as a means of self-protection or sexual predation, an adaptive behavior also described as tonic immobility, aka playing dead. A few predators have evolved to incorporate this assumed posture in order to lure their prey into a state of vulnerability. […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 8/5/2019
I think a lot about retirement. I’m not yet of an age that anyone other than my teenagers would consider “old,” but it occurs to me now and then that I’m closer to the end than to the beginning. I get tired. Most days, I possess neither the optimal levels of energy nor give-a-shit. The […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 7/21/2019
Time and tide wait for no man, but for a select few, they’re willing to look the other way. Cezanne didn’t put on his first art exhibit until turning 56. Diana Nyad swam the Gulf, from Havana to Key West — 110 miles — at age 64. (Shark cages, by the way, are for candy-asses.) […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 7/14/2019
It’s hard to know what not to look at first. The mudflap ears. The lump of a chin, almost an identical twin to the Adam’s Apple in its tiny shadow. The stringy build, like a bedsheet slung over an old TV antenna — or the Vlasic Pickles Stork on a pilates regimen. With an awkward […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 6/29/2019
We are all jobbers. Journeymen. Club-circuit vets. Gatekeepers and B-siders. Taxi drivers, tomato cans and trash men. Pugs and palookas. Oh, that’s not you? You’re special? Hate to break it to you, Chico, but you are not the Floyd Mayweather of your beige suburban office park. You are lower-middle management. You are a junior associate […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 6/16/2019
John L. Sullivan took on all comers between and beyond the ropes during his heyday in the late 19th century, and his ability to outlast or overcome nearly every one of his opponents cast him as the most acclaimed fighter of his era and the first of history’s recognized world heavyweight champions. You know what? […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 5/27/2019
Because locating the exact point at which homage ends and gratuitous pandering begins, we have boxing. Plot a path starting from “vaguely uncomfortable undertones,“ remove all forms of tact and discretion, and you’ll find yourself just a short DeLorean ride away from “ham-fisted stereotypes, flag-humping nationalism and ‘Cats’-meets-snuff-film aberrancy.” Welcome, freaks! In the past week […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 5/19/2019
Are we sure this kid isn’t Kazakh? The thought dawned on me the first time watching Naoya Inoue. It might have been his swarming stoppage of Adrian Hernandez to win a junior flyweight title. Or maybe when he hopped a weight class to turn Omar Narvaez’s liver into pâté and swipe his belt. Could have […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 5/3/2019
Let’s get the cancer out of the way up front. It’s gratuitous. More than a little gross. As unceasing as the open hi-hat in a pre-teen punk band. The lather the boxing media works itself into before, during and immediately after every fight involving DANIEL JACOBS, CANCER SURVIVOR is as frothy and unseemly as a […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 4/21/2019
Give Amir Khan this: He does not merely invite derision. When Amir Khan comes calling, he asks derision to stay in the guest house for the week, drink all his top-shelf liquor and drive his wife around town, keep her company – you know, just show her a good time. It is easy for boxing […]
