0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/17/2014
(Nov. 8, Atlantic City; Sergey Kovalev celebrates his win over Bernard Hopkins after their bout at Boardwalk Hall. Credit: Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports) Just about all the 2014 business is finished for the best boxers in the world across every weight division, with only Adonis Stevenson and Guillermo Rigondeaux on this list yet to have […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/13/2014
(Ishe Smith, right, Erislandy Lara, left; credit: Stephanie Trapp, Showtime) Erislandy Lara on Friday night definitively demonstrated that it’s a better use of your time to focus on becoming a skilled boxer, and better to use your energy in the ring applying that, than devoting yourself to posturing and histrionics. Ishe Smith, the opponent he decisioned with ease […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/11/2014
Regular font: Devon Alexander vs. Amir Khan is an evenly-matched fight Saturday night on Showtime between two contenders in one of boxing’s deepest divisions. Sarcastic font: Ooooooh, thanks so veeeeerrry much, Showtime, for always providing fights JUST like this throughout 2014. It’s a weekly occurrence and if evenly-matched Showtime fights in 2014 were calories, we’d […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/5/2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARLvgrTFXzM Junior welterweight prospect Mike Reed just had his first fight away from the East Coast last weekend in Nebraska, appearing on the undercard of a fighter he said he admires, Terence Crawford, and won a close decision. Here he is in a lightly condensed and edited Q&A on what went right in the fight, […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/2/2014
(via @HBOBoxing on Twitter) Three writers whose work I admire — David P. Greisman, Bart Barry and Carlos Acevedo — have in recent days offered some critiques of Terence Crawford vs. Raymundo Beltran that I think warrant rebuttals. We’ll dispense with the set-up other than to say that this isn’t anything personal in any way, […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/30/2014
(via @HBOBoxing on Twitter) Terence Crawford is a lot of things after Saturday night: the true lightweight champion of the world; a candidate for Fighter of the Year; perhaps the best test for Manny Pacquiao outside of Floyd Mayweather; and someone who’s going to start getting some pound-for-pound top 10 buzz. It was a big […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
(Jayson Velez, left, Evgeny Gradovich, right; via @HBOBoxing on Twitter) Jayson Velez proved he belonged on the world stage against Evgeny Gradovich, who proved what he always proved, which is that fighting him is one of the most painful outings in boxing. But Gradovich probably deserved a decision win Saturday night on HBO rather than a split […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/29/2014
In Terence Crawford, fighting Saturday evening on HBO, we have the latest contestant for Floyd Mayweather’s successor as the next American superstar boxer — a game show punctuated by the mournful blasts of sad trombones for years now. Chad Dawson? He had the physical talent, but none of the personality, and he petered out. Andre Ward? He had an […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/24/2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_NyqeNLheQ Wouldn’t that headline just convince you everything was A-OK in boxing? Well you’d be wrong, is what you’d be. But there are some fine things, like that Amir Mansour knockout above. It’s in the KO of the Year discussion with another recent knockout, Wladimir Klitschko-Kubrat Pulev. We’ll have some other videos sprinkled throughout this […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/23/2014
(Manny Pacquiao, left, Chris Algieri, right; via @hboboxing on Twitter) Manny Pacquiao had his way with Chris Algieri Saturday night on HBO Pay-Per-View, pretty much, if scoring six knockdowns means anything. Which it does. Algieri, the least accomplished opponent of Pacquiao’s post-2008 run, won one round on two scorecards and couldn’t stay on his feet […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
(Zou Shiming; via @HBOBoxing on Twitter) Through a couple rounds, Zou Shiming was delivering his best performance Saturday night on the undercard of Manny Pacquiao vs. Chris Algieri. By the end of the fight, all of his old flaws had resurfaced. But he won almost every round, scored a number of knockdowns against Kwanpichit Onesongchaigym and […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/22/2014
(Lomachenko connects on Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo; via @HBOBoxing on Twitter) Vasyl Lomachenko does astounding things in the ring. Saturday night he was on his way to a beautifully boxed win, perhaps even a knockout, that showed off his versatility and all-around excellence. Then he injured his left hand. He didn’t lose a round after that. Appearing on […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
Jessie Vargas finally won a clear decision instead of having to rely on Vegas judges to side with him, beating Antonio DeMarco over 12 bruising rounds Saturday night on the undercard of Manny Pacquiao vs. Chris Algieri. He isn’t great, or even particularly good, and probably never will be, even having switched to Roy Jones, […]
0 comments by Steve Caimano on 11/20/2014
(Mayweather, left, Pacquiao, right; via) I’m a sucker. I’m a sucker because when I read this story from the Los Angeles Times this week asserting that “The Pacquiao-Mayweather buzz has been heating up since September” I forget all about when people were saying this the last time (August), and the time before that, and, well, all […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/19/2014
(Photo via) Patrol the places where hardcore boxing fans live, and you’ll find a substantial strain of them whose commentary about this weekend’s HBO pay-per-view fight between Manny Pacquiao and Chris Algieri is significantly focused on hating Algieri. It’s not to hard to identify how this came to be, if you’ve studied Hardcorus Boxingfanius. And individual tastes on […]
