I went to Lou DiBella’s Broadway Boxing card at BB King Blues Club & Grill in New York for two reasons. One, because I’m intrigued by Tor Hamer, a young, unbeaten, American heavyweight prospect I’ve seen on ESPN2, previous Broadway Boxing cards that aired on SNY, and read about on this very blog. Two, because […]

Say what you will about this season of ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights — I thought it was improved, others did not — it sure is closing strong. This weekend, by far its best card in a long, long time will go a long way toward healing the wounds of its worst card in a long, […]

BoxingScene reports that the California commission has overturned the result of the Nate Campbell/Tim Bradley fight, changing it to a no-contest because the cut that stopped the fight was clearly the result of an accidental headbutt. The right call to make, for sure. And a nice example of justice prevailing in a sport where it […]

Greetings from the past! As I write this, it is Friday, and I’m prepping for my vacation. So while I intend this post to fill you in on the week’s other major boxing events in my absence — aside from the stellar upcoming Friday Night Fights card, already previewed (in my future) yesterday — there’s […]

Whoops — sorry about the formatting, folks. Still getting used to this system. We all remember the 2002 Olympic figure skating controversy. Despite a seemingly clearly inferior performance, a Russian pair won the gold medal in the face of a dazzling performance by Canadians Jamie Salé and David Pelletier. The blame immediately fell on the […]

Junior welterweight Paulie Malignaggi looked enough like his old self to produce a rousing, competitive bout with Juan Diaz Saturday, but didn’t do enough to win in Diaz’ backyard of Houston. It was a close fight that I thought Diaz won by one round, but the judge who had it 118-110 can’t really have meant […]

Before we get into this edition of Quick Jabs, you all need to know I’m going on vacation soon for a week and a day so that I may pelt Spaniards in their faces with tomatoes. I’d like it if some of you took this opportunity to guest-blog while I’m away. Got an idea for […]

They often say that one of the differences between boxing cards and mixed martial arts cards is that MMA tries to give people “events” with lots of good fights and boxing just gives people one good main event fight and a bunch of junk beforehand. They are right. But with the Sept. 19 Floyd Mayweather-Juan […]

At the start of 2009, HBO decided it was going to be in the Juan Diaz business and the Robert Guerrero business, investing in them as part of a list of young fighters the network thought had a chance of becoming stars. Even though both have suffered setbacks, HBO is staying in the business. Diaz, […]

(It’s all been downhill for Mr. Pavlik, pictured getting punched in the mug by Mr. Hopkins, for a while. Photo credit: AP/Tim Larsen) You may have read that the Oct. 3 Kelly Pavlik-Paul Williams middleweight championship fight has been postponed, but it’s very possible the fight won’t happen at all now. Why? Because Pavlik and/or […]

I haven’t done a full-length, in-depth pound-for-pound list since 2008, instead relying on shorter updates, and I’d intended to the full treatment halfway through the year, except for all kinds of summer fights got canceled, so it didn’t make much sense to do it then, since nobody was shifting or changing very dramatically. Now makes […]

I have to admit right from the get-go: Hook City was a lot more fun than I expected. It was far from perfect (more on that later), but the fights themselves were largely entertaining, thanks in good part to headliner and promoter Roy “Captain Hook” Jones, Jr., who took a lot of cheap shots from […]

Over on Telmundo Friday night, lightweight Antonio Pitalua put together a 1-2 on Jose Reyes’ jaw that, in any year where Manny Pacquiao hadn’t delivered perhaps the Knockout of the Decade against then-junior welterweight champion Ricky Hatton, might be a leading candidate for Knockout of the Year. Reyes was something of a journeyman, but as […]

Against an opponent three divisions above his most recent fight, Nonito Donaire on Saturday beat an unprofessionally overweight Rafael Concepcion in a difficult, tense unanimous decision that proved he can handle bigger men but that also showed he has massive room for improvement. On the undercard, featherweight Steve Luevano beat Bernabe Concepcion by disqualification when […]

To your right is a poster for perhaps the most important light heavyweight fight of the weekend. On Saturday, Beibut Shumenov will try to become the light heavyweight titlist who achieved that goal in the fewest number of fights: Nine. That’s assuming it happens, by the way. Universum claims it has an option on Gabriel […]