Saturday night, in the biggest fight of 2008, all the questions about Oscar De La Hoya versus Manny Pacquiao — boxing’s top star and its finest practitioner — shall be answered, and all the storylines shall be brought to an end. We will find out if the 35-year-old De La Hoya is too old, or […]

(We continue our daily De La Hoya/Pacquiao coverage, leading up to a live blog Saturday night. See here and here for “Keys To The Fight, Parts I And II” and here for a little about the fight’s high stakes. Tomorrow: the official prediction.) I fear no reprisals, so I must go against the grain and […]

(Please join us all week long for daily De La Hoya/Pacquiao coverage, leading up to a live blog Saturday night. Today: How the two men stack up in some of the areas that will decide the fight’s outcome.)Strategery. Boxing is about more than just the physical elements. There’s also the sweet science to consider in […]

Much of the criticism surrounding the Contender reality series has been pointed at the participants of the show themselves.  Far from world beaters, the fighters showcased on the show typically were little more than regionally popular club fighters.  Now for me that wasn’t an issue but for others, it was a subject of much debate.  […]

If you’re like me, you’ve only seen some relatively grainy footage of the controversial junior welterweight (140 lbs.) title fight between Kendall Holt and Ricardo Torres in 2007. If you’re like me, you’ve seen the likewise controversial Holt-Torres II earlier this year several times over. And if you’re like me, you’re eagerly looking forward to […]

(Please join us all week long for daily De La Hoya/Pacquiao coverage, leading up to a live blog Saturday night. Today: How the two men stack up in some of the areas that will decide the fight’s outcome.)Maybe Manny Pacquiao is too small; maybe Oscar De La Hoya is too old. Maybe Pacquiao trainer Freddie […]

While this Saturday’s mega fight between Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya may be monopolizing fight fan’s attention the fact remains that other news abounds in the world of the sweet science. Tim has been doing an excellent job of highlighting this year’s biggest event and given that we share many of the same […]

This being a pro boxing-oriented blog, I confess I’d never seen world amateur boxer ratings until today, via Boxing Along the Beltway/D.C. Amateur Boxing. The man who provided the rankings to D.C. Amateur Boxing, the U.K.’s Michael Smith, appears to have been a well-regarded authority on the matter for any number of years. In the […]

Via Deadspin, it picks up just as things get interesting: You have to love the way both heavyweights came out swinging. Not strategically, necessarily, but from an entertainment standpoint.

(Please join us all week long for daily De La Hoya/Pacquiao coverage, leading up to a live blog Saturday night. Today: Why the fight matters, and what its result means for boxing.) A total joke. Earlier this year, that’s what I thought of Oscar De La Hoya fighting Manny Pacquiao. In the first half of […]

We’ve got a whole week of Oscar De La Hoya-Manny Pacquiao coverage ahead for you, starting today (with some slices of other things, like this week’s premier episode of “The Contender” on Versus), so let’s clear the deck from this past weekend. Above, in an admittedly poor quality video, Edgar Sosa completed his junior flyweight […]

Paul Williams, above: Boxing elite’s skinniest. Chris Arreola: Boxing elite’s fattest. Paul Williams and Chris Arreola had trouble with their opponents early, but turned the tables to knock them out. In so doing, Williams enhanced his stock with me, but Arreola hurt his. Williams never was in any major trouble, but lost a round to […]

I’ve never used this “Cover It Live” live blog application before, so in advance of the live blog I anticipate doing for Manny Pacquiao-Oscar De La Hoya next weekend, I’ll give it a test run tonight so I can be safe rather than sorry. (I won’t do as good a job this week as I […]

Whatever your opinion of boxing, I think you’d be forced to admit that it is without peer among sports in one vital category: nicknames. For years, nicknames in almost every other sport have been going downhill, and steeply. The whole “first initial dash last name” trend has gotten way out of hand. There are some […]

Quality, exciting young American fighters are a scarcer breed than I’d like them to be right now, but they’re far from extinct. Of the 10 best fighters in world, there are only two Americans on my list at all, and one is a 43-year-old. But help is on the way. There are a very nice […]