0 comments by Tim Starks on 8/16/2020
Maybe don’t judge a thing by the first time the thing happens. Saturday’s Showtime card was not as good as the last one featured in this space, either on paper or in practice. Action-oriented super middleweight David Benavidez was in the main event. So far, so good, yes? His opponent, 36-year-old Roamer (great name!) Alexis […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 8/9/2020
We’ve gotta talk about David Morrell, y’all. Morrell, a super middleweight in just his third pro fight Saturday on Fox, led off the card and overshadowed everything else that came after. The last highly heralded amateur star to make his pro debut then immediately blitz into bouts against top competition a la what Morrell’s doing […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 8/1/2020
That was much better. Boxing returned to Showtime on Saturday evening, following an earlier comeback from a couple other networks. It was only one card, but even with the now-standard “guy’s not in the fight cuz he tested positive for Covid-19,” the matchmaking here was much better than what we’ve seen on ESPN. The main […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 7/15/2020
The pandemic is messing with scheduled cards so much it’s sometimes hard to pick any one “story” to focus on, so this will be the old “empty the notebook” trick: ****** Despite a solid substitute main event (we’ll return to this soon, then again later), it remains unclear whether boxing in the age of the […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 6/26/2020
Before Andrew Moloney and Jason Moloney headlined separate ESPN cards this week, Jason and Andrew squared up against one another in a game of table tennis. Jason won. Andrew did not. That went for both the fighting and the ping-pong. The Australian twin brothers, Andrew first and then Jason, made their Las Vegas debuts, albeit […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 6/21/2020
It’s hard not to sound like complaining, when there’s anything negative to say about “any boxing happening at all,” versus the months-long “none.” There’s nothing that can be done about it. You just have to mix in the small pleasures you unearth. Saturday’s 11 p.m. (!) ESPN card was headlined by Emanuel Navarrete. That’s a […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 6/19/2020
“The MGM Grand once again proudly boasting that boxing is back,” Joe Tessitore said Thursday night in the lead-in to the ESPN show. Well, it sort of is. The main event feature fight with Jose Pedraza headlining got postponed to July due to Mikkel LesPierre’s manager testing positive despite being “in the bubble.” It’s the […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 5/31/2020
When most people think of the names “Paul Williams” and “Antonio Margarito” they don’t necessarily associate them with one another, but instead with a host of bizarre, thrilling and controversial moments from their respective careers. Williams suffered a major upset loss to Carlos Quintana right after he stepped in the ring for the first time […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 4/9/2020
There is no boxing thanks to COVID-19 and we might have roving gangs of warboys before pro pugilism returns. So we TQBRers are looking back at the beforetimes. “Context matters” is a thing people say because it just does, everywhere, all the time — which is to say, except for when one is talking about […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/21/2020
There is no boxing thanks to COVID-19 and we might have roving gangs of warboys before pro pugilism returns. So we TQBRers are looking back at the beforetimes. As I write this, I am age 44. Seventeen years ago, then, doesn’t seem so far back. Yet 2003 seems like a distinctly different time, when viewed […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 2/23/2020
Tyson Fury said he’d score a knockout against Deontay Wilder in the 2nd round, and Wilder, and we, laughed. One round later, it was effectively over; it just took Wilder’s corner five more rounds to end it. Fury won the most significant heavyweight fight in years Saturday night on pay-per-view to become the true heavyweight […]
0 comments by Andy Ryan on 2/13/2020
1. The Decision The Holiday Inn, Stratford, London, 21st March 2019 “Go to Tokyo, represent my country, win a medal.” He spent years striving for Olympic glory but now won’t be going. He’s all smiles as he explains the decision, any regrets overtaken by the excitement at what next. Dalton Smith is turning pro. The […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 2/9/2020
Showtime made a risky decision to headline a doubleheader with A-sides who mainly had in common that they are ultra-talented fighters who routinely disappoint us. Guillermo Rigondeaux is at times virtually unwatchable. Gary Russell Jr. can also rarely be watched, because he fights about once a year — literally so, since 2015. All in all, […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 1/25/2020
We’re nearing a month into this bouncing baby of a decade, and as such we’ve seen our share of boxing match-up wish lists for the new year. But let’s think about it slightly differently. If there are just a handful of fights we simply have to see in 2020 — by virtue of the general […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 1/19/2020
If you have to sit through a swampy maulfest of a boxing match, the least you can get out of it is an early Knockout of the Year candidate. So, uh, thanks, Eleider Alvarez and Michael Seals? Saturday night’s ESPN main event served as Alvarez’s return to light heavyweight action after 11 months off after […]
