0 comments by Tim Starks on 10/1/2014
It was a more enticing match-up Wednesday than we’re used to seeing from ESPN: two fringe middleweight contenders, Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam vs. Curtis Stevens. It also wasn’t competitive, alas, with the only moment of drama coming in the seesaw 8th, as the mobile N’Dam otherwise dominated the power punching Stevens. The drama in the 8th […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/30/2014
(Roman Gonzalez, left; Akira Yaegashi, right) At last, some movement. Since our last update of the best boxers in the world, regardless of weight, some of them have, actually, you know, fought. And in some meaningful fights, too. There are two new entrants to the top 10 (hint: one of them is in the picture), […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/22/2014
Very good fight from this past weekend, that Orlando Salido vs. Terdsak Kokietgym, especially early. It stuffed in seven knockdowns, legal and no, and lots of swapped punches at the official start of Salido’s official 130-pound campaign. In an overdue edition of Quick Jabs, we’ll talk about the subjects in the headline — yeah, still some Floyd to […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/15/2014
For many a long-time boxing fan, Floyd Mayweather’s repugnance as a human being is an ongoing source of eye rolls, because what else can they do? There are the major evils, like the multiple convictions for battering women, or his racist and homophobic remarks about Manny Pacquiao, or his public disclosure of his ex-fiancee’s abortion; then […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/13/2014
Floyd Mayweather did one of the things Saturday night that makes him the best in the world, which is to figure out what his opponent does well and neutralize it. It was enough to win by a wider margin this time against his fiercest recent foe, Marcos Maidana, than last time. It was a far […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
Surprise, surprise. Leo Santa Cruz (right), in one of the worst mismatches on any recent pay-per-view undercard — which doesn’t exactly set a high standard — stopped Manuel Roman (left) in two rounds in the penultimate bout on the Floyd Mayweather vs. Marcos Maidana II PPV on Showtime Saturday. There’s next to nothing to say […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/12/2014
(Marcos Maidana’s duckface + leopard print snakeskin tuxedo = look of the year) Don’t follow boxing very often, but you want to know the gist of Saturday’s mega-fight between Floyd Mayweather and Marcos Maidana? Follow boxing all the time, and want one place that rounds up all the links about the junior middleweight showdown you […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/11/2014
Welcome to fight week for Floyd Mayweather, where ugly-spectacle-as-promotional-hype builds up to his sublime perfection in the ring. How low can Mayweather sink, in the department of self-marketing? Low enough to, as a convicted woman beater, to capitalize on the publicity he gets from defending Ray Rice, for instance, this past week. Last time, it […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/7/2014
(Adrien Broner celebrates his knockdown of Emmanuel Taylor; Stephanie Trapp, Showtime) A showcase tripleheader on Showtime delivered a fun main event, yet one that also demonstrated the limitations of its star, while the undercard had its share of flaws, too. A hungry Emanuel Taylor leaped from ESPN2 to a Showtime main event and gave Adrien […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/6/2014
The flyweight division’s stellar run of late has been marked by its parity, but after this weekend there are now two clear top 112 pounders: Newly-crowned king Roman Gonzalez, who on Friday stopped Akira Yaegashi, and Juan Francisco Estrada, who on Saturday halted Giovani Segura. Estrada-Segura started sloppily enough, which you might have thought could […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/5/2014
Akira Yaegashi showed the spirit of a champion to even get in the ring with Roman Gonzalez. And he fought with championship mettle Friday before his home crowd in Japan. But Gonzalez is the true, lineal flyweight champion now, the king of the best division in boxing, and we should be talking about him as […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/4/2014
As funnier wags have said about this photo of Peter Dinklage and Gennady Golovkin, “GGG would have decimated the Mountain.” Golovkin certainly would have confirmed the kill. In this mammoth-sized edition of Quick Jabs, we will have more substantial matters to discuss about GGG. We will also have the subject in the headlines, and more […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/3/2014
By every measurement save one, this should be among the most highly anticipated boxing weekends of 2014. No, not because of Showtime’s showcase tripleheader, obviously. The real high-level action is taking place far up the television dial in the United States, or else nowhere to be found at all. That’s because the men who are providing […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/2/2014
What if… there existed another universe where fighters were ranked pound-for-pound — i.e., who’s best regardless of weight — based nothing at all on any actual evidence from what a fighter had actually accomplished? A dimension where some figure or the other just points at a fighter and says, “I think he looks like he’s […]
0 comments by Andy Ryan on 8/25/2014
(May 3; Las Vegas; Adrien Broner [right] against Carlos Molina during their fight at MGM Grand. Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports) A young boxer without hype is just one of countless hopefuls. Add hype and suddenly you’ve got a “hot prospect,” “a contender,” maybe even “the next big thing.” Hype attracts fans, sells tickets, […]
