0 comments by Tim Starks on 8/21/2022
Greetings, friends. But sad greetings. [Well, mostly sad. Read on for the good news after the bad.] You might have noticed the amount of “content” (ugh) on The Queensberry Rules declining over time, especially in 2022. There are a buncha reasons for it, but the final nail in the coffin is that your proprietor has […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 5/30/2022
Let us consider the matter of Gervonta Davis’ career, as it sits at a particular kind of crossroad: The kind where he can continue to tread water in relative safety, or takes the foundations of superstardom and builds upon them. They key word in the above sentence is “relative,” because Rolando Romero is not, as […]
0 comments by Steve Hunt on 5/7/2022
How should we remember John Tate? We could argue all day about how much control we have over the paths that our lives take, but one thing that we have little control of, is how people choose to remember us. Take Big John Tate, for example. Two boxing fans are chatting away in a bar… […]
0 comments by Jamie Rebner on 5/1/2022
Shakur Stevenson continues to impress and exceed the lofty expectations placed on him. Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, the Newark resident thoroughly dominated Oscar Valdez by unanimous decision to hand the Mexican native his first loss. Throughout the 12 rounds, Stevenson was in command and never remotely troubled by Valdez. With such […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 4/18/2022
It’s the kind of moment you want to see how a truly elite fighter handles: In the 6th round of his welterweight battle with Yordenis Ugas Saturday night, Errol Spence Jr. finally got rattled. It was a situation he gift-wrapped for Ugas, which is, certainly, a bit incriminating. With his mouthpiece knocked out, Spence just […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 1/4/2022
Welcome back to The Queensberry Rules’ annual year-end boxing awards, continuing over the course of a week. Here’s how we do it around these parts: The major categories are Knockout of the Year, Fight of the Year and Fighter of the Year. For each category, we give five finalists, with video and/or relevant info, as […]
Oct 9, 2021; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; Deontay Wilder (red/black trunks) is knocked out by Tyson Fury (black/gold trunks) during their WBC/Lineal heavyweight championship boxing match at T-Mobile Arena. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
0 comments by Tim Starks on 1/3/2022
When sports equal the artistic merit produced in fiction, one of the ways it happens is as unscripted drama with narratives as rich as the unreal. Within seconds of the opening bell one October night, Tyson Fury vs Deontay Wilder 3 started piling on the narratives that ensured we were about to get that kind […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/31/2021
Welcome to The Queensberry Rules’ annual year-end boxing awards, continuing over the course of a week. Here’s how we do it around these parts: The major categories are Knockout of the Year, Fight of the Year and Fighter of the Year. For each category, we give five finalists, with video and/or relevant info, as well […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/29/2021
Initially, it was difficult to narrow down who had the more compelling post-fight story between George Kambosos Jr. and Teofimo Lopez Jr. Kambosos had just pulled off a huge majority decision upset against a pound-for-pound top-10 boxer to take the lineal lightweight championship. He had done so by withstanding Lopez’s incredible power and even swapping […]
Nov 6, 2021; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; Canelo Alvarez (gold/white trunks) and Caleb Plant (white/gray trunks) box during their undisputed super middleweight world championship boxing match at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/8/2021
It was an odd sort of thing ahead of Canelo Alvarez vs Caleb Plant, seeing the former in People magazine (of all places), talking about his daughter applying eyeshadow to her father (of all activities). It’s not that there’s anything inherently un-masculine about being a proud “girl dad” who gets his nails painted. We’re past […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/12/2021
There is nothing awful that happened this past boxing weekend that wasn’t already easily reprimanded in advance, and reprimanded well. Sometimes, it’s best to let the best word on it all stand, swiftly sweep up the remainders and move on. In the bout of any meaning — a bout deprived to some degree of its […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 8/17/2021
Boxing has a grand tradition of its athletes protesting, both within and outside the sport. Muhammad Ali, most obviously, protested the Vietnam War and more. Last month, a French Olympian protested his disqualification with a sit-in afterward — the Olympics being a pretty serial site of ring injustice. Never before has the sport witnessed, until […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 7/18/2021
We’ve all been there. Something truly exciting is about to happen. It starts to happen and it feels really good. Then it just… it just stops, unsatisfactorily. It’s called ruined orga— Sorry, that is, Jermell Charlo vs Brian Castano Saturday night on Showtime. This was to be the fight that would crown a legitimate junior […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 5/31/2021
By age 38 — more like age 50 at 118 pounds, where fighters get older faster — Nonito Donaire should be well into the part of his career where he gets by on veteran savvy, if he gets by at all. Coming off a two-year rest, after the most grueling fight of his life, no […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 4/26/2021
It’s fair to assume that there’s ample overlap between boxing and people who have dark senses of humor. So one could be forgiven for laughing when hearing Christopher Diaz’s trainer tell him just before the final round of his Saturday war with Emanuel Navarrete: “There is no pain.” Buddy. Navarrete is nothing BUT pain! Easy […]
