Just superb. If you love boxing, or even if you don’t, Saturday night showed why the sport, for all its flaws, is capable of providing entertainment that is incomparable. It’s almost too bad, in a way, that junior featherweights (122 lbs.) Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez waged such a thrilling war in MARCH, because how […]

I will have more to say at some point, likely tomorrow, but I have three quick, simple thoughts about Israel Vazquez-Rafael Marquez III. It was breath-taking, and it deserves more words than I can give on short notice. It deserves words from Homer or somebody, frankly. 1.  This was better than the first two, or, […]

When featherweights (126 lbs.) Robert Guerrero and Jason Litzau stood face to face before the opening bell, I glanced at Guerrero, who looked ticked off, and then at Litzau. “Wow. Litzau looks freaked out or something,” I thought. The Showtime’s commentators noted much the same. And for several rounds, Litzau fought like someone who was […]

Thursday wasn’t exactly a good day for boxing. It was not, as some would have it, a “nail in the coffin”-type day, either. While news emerged that talks between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson were getting serious for a third meeting that would be one of the more shameless, hideous monstrosities of a boxing abortion […]

Lost in the immense shadow of this Saturday’s mega-fight, the highly anticipated rubber-match between junior featherweights Israel Vasquez and Rafael Marquez, is an intriguing matchup of two explosive fighters a mere four pounds north of the aforementioned duo. This Friday night Showtime will kick off what promises to be a great weekend of fights with […]

The last time Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez stepped into the ring with one another, they fathered a masterpiece. It had everything every boxing fan could ever want. Bravery. Skill. Power-punching. Wild swings of drama. Action. Especially, action. Historic levels, in fact: Their July rematch of their initial March meeting was almost unanimously considered the […]

Your face still stinging from Tim’s Quick Jabs?  No worries my friend, have a pint with me and let’s all get Punch Drunk! Mayweather at Wrestlemania – A Good Move? As Tim touched on in his Quick Jabs post, welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather is reportedly set to make $20 million dollars for his participation in WWE’s upcoming […]

Please find some early week “Quick Jabs” below to get out of the way before focusing entirely on Saturday night’s stellar donnybrook, including the debut of yet another new feature to go along with all the other gimmicks. If you’re not keeping track, “Quick Jabs” is my feature for a buncha random thoughts on random […]

First of all I want to take the time to praise the work of my colleague Tim as his exceptional coverage of the Klitschko-Ibragimov battle was top notch entertainment.  I must admit that I am still miffed at how such a fight with so much promise failed miserably to produce anything in the way of […]

Quick and dirty… I finally caught last Saturday’s Kelly Pavlik-Jermain Taylor II on replay, so I thought I’d share some brief thoughts on it; then suppress my gag reflex and tie up loose ends on Vladimir Klistchko-Sultan Ibragimov from last night; and finally remind everyone that, no matter popular perception after the heavyweights stank up […]

NEW YORK CITY — Both sides blamed the other for Vladimir Klitschko-Sultan Ibragimov turning into a terrible fight. But they were “unified” on the fact that it was terrible. That and other thoughts from the news conference, where there was some actual news — John Duddy-Kelly Pavlik is off — and I had a brief […]

NEW YORK CITY — For almost every second of 12 straight rounds, Vladimir Klitschko looked like he was single-handedly trying to ruin boxing by throwing no punch other than a jab. Or maybe he’s an obsessive-compulsive. Or maybe he’s a performance artist who wanted to prove a point about the beauty of only winning a […]

NEW YORK CITY — For three amazingly dramatic rock ’em sock ’em rounds, Walid Smichet was on the verge of, as I said he had a chance to, upsetting the John Duddy apple cart. He was just flat bombing Duddy out of the place as Duddy tried to out-slug him. But then, Duddy discovered some […]

NEW YORK CITY — The Garden’s starting to swell with people. Between undercard fights leading into the big heavyweight clash between Vladimir Klitschko and Sultan Ibragimov, Alexa Ray Joel, daughter of pop star Billy, rocked the National Anthem. (I’m not kidding.) The bigger names on the undercard quickly eliminated their opponents, and you can tell […]

NEW YORK CITY — The bigger undercard fights and the main event at Madison Square Garden’s heavyweight unification bout are still ahead, so here’s a diary of how things are going in the lead-up to Vladimir Klitschko-Sultan Ibragimov.