0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/15/2014
Kubrat Pulev came to fight against the heavyweight champion Saturday, never backing down, roughing him up, suffering some heavy blows and coming right back to land some big shots of his own. It was exactly what we’ve been hoping someone might do to Wladimir Klitschko someday. Klitschko withstood it all, and responded to every second […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/13/2014
This is just about as good as it gets for the modern heavyweight division: The true champion is facing the most qualified opponent he hasn’t yet defeated. It’s a legitimate fight, Wladimir Klitschko vs. Kubrat Pulev. HBO is televising Saturday afternoon, as it should, no matter how tedious Klitschko fights are to many of us, because […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/9/2014
(Bernard Hopkins, black trunks, takes a punch from Sergey Kovalev; Ed Mulholland, USA TODAY Sports) ATLANTIC CITY – Sergey Kovalev couldn’t knock out Bernard Hopkins Saturday night on HBO. He was robbed of his trademark, the thing that has made him a sensation. But what he did might have been more impressive: He outboxed the ancient […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
(Sadam Ali warms up before facing Luis Carlos Abregu; via @hboboxing on Twitter) ATLANTIC CITY — Sadam Ali fucked up Luis Carlos Abregu Saturday night, stopping him in the 9th, a result foreseen by no one. The young, unproven ex-Olympian was making a huge step up by taking on the dangerous welterweight puncher, a step perhaps […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/8/2014
ATLANTIC CITY — It might be a dying town, but AC has some life this weekend, even with the always-frigid November ocean breeze freezing those roaming the Boardwalk. The main event of the HBO broadcast is, naturally, the big attraction right now. The truly compelling bout between light heavyweights Bernard Hopkins and Sergey Kovalev is still […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/7/2014
How’s this for an odd sport: The best thing to happen to boxing in a long time is a 49-year-old man taking on one of the sport’s premier power punchers in his prime. That’s what’s happening Saturday on HBO, when the crusty, mean-spirited old alley cat named Bernard Hopkins steps into the ring with the new blood […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/2/2014
Here’s boxing in 2014, in a nutshell: Showtime, which had cast its lot with Golden Boy’s Richard Schaefer prior to the company’s split with him, has aired trash almost exclusively this year, yet is putting on a quality welterweight bout Dec. 13 between Devon Alexander and Amir Khan. The undercard bout between junior middleweights Demetrius […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 10/30/2014
The opaque marketing campaigns have come and gone, and “Mike Tyson Mysteries” has made its debut on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim — you can even watch the first episode here. What to make of it? (Spoilers ahead.) There is no way to make total sense of it. It’s eccentric in the way a lot of Adult […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 10/26/2014
Kangaroo fight videos are too depressing. Koalas are now the Australian marsupial combatants of choice. They sound like geese squawking, and they don’t seem capable of doing much damage. The above video features a koala on the right who is the Bernard Hopkins of the koala fighting world — he’s a sneaky fouler, over and […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 10/18/2014
(via
0 comments by Tim Starks
(Nicholas Walters, right, Nonito Donaire, right;
0 comments by Tim Starks on 10/17/2014
On Saturday, HBO offers one spectacular fighter and one spectacular match-up. In a boxing year like 2014, that’s a mix you’ll take gladly — perhaps, too, though, one you’ll take masochistically, in a desert environment where any oasis will do, and where one with pear trees is like heaven. The spectacular fighter is, of course, Gennady […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 10/13/2014
Kangaroo boxing videos have lost some of their appeal, ever since the kangaroo boxing video where one kangaroo sociopathically strangled another kangaroo well beyond the bounds of good taste. The one above isn’t so creepy. It has become a minor smash, with cause. In this edition of Quick Jabs, we’ll talk about human-punching, mainly, and […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 10/8/2014
Sam Soliman vs. Jermain Taylor on ESPN2 Wednesday night was a can’t-win fight. Nobody was going to come out of this making anyone feel warm and fuzzy. At least Taylor (complete with brain bleed and recent bizarre behavior) didn’t take a beating that made everyone fear for his health — on the contrary, he secured […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 10/4/2014
(Rances Barthelemy, left, Fernando David Saucedo, right; Amanda Kwok, Showtime) It had a sad start, a surprisingly exciting middle and a sleepy main event, Saturday’s Showtime card. To wit, in reverse order: Rances Barthelemy had no trouble with Fernando David Saucedo. Vanes Martirosyan and Willie Nelson waged a mini-war, with Martirosyan coming out on top. […]
