"Russell unfazed by criticism," reads the recent RingTV headline about featherweight talent Gary Russell, Jr., and I believe he is. It would be impossible to go about his career the way he has if he cared what anyone thought, because the former Olympian and consensus 2011 Prospect of the Year has comported himself shamelessly since […]

Curtis Stevens has been pining for a showdown with middleweight monster Gennady Golovkin, and he did his part in making people want to see it with a 1st round Knockout of the Year candidate Saturday on NBC Sports Network. Stevens hurt Saul Roman immediately, and while Roman's not as sturdy as NBC Sports made him […]

There aren't any match-ups on the calendar quite as epic as the protagonist and antagonist of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! — nor the artwork that piece above (via, h/t) is based upon, the cover for Muhammad Ali Vs. Superman — but there are some awfully good ones. The men in the headline are involved, as are Adrien Broner, […]

The scores were all over the place for the judges assessing Javier Fortuna vs. Luis Franco on ESPN2's Friday Night Fights, which was fitting, considering how everyone else in the world had such wild scores. One judge saw it 99-91 for Franco; ESPN2's Teddy Atlas had it 99-91 Fortuna. The truth was somewhere in between, […]

That's your cover for the first book from David P. Greisman, which I can only heartily endorse. "But Tim," you say, "Aren't you buddies with Dave?" I am. I suppose that gives me a certain bias. But let's go back in time. Mr. Greisman and Mr. Starks are friends in part because we came to […]

Usually with this annual exercise that's modeled after what writers do in other sports — akin to, say, write-ups of "power conferences" for the NCAA — it's all spread out, with some bigger boxing divisions mixed with some smaller divisions at the top. Not this time. The highest-graded weight classes all inhabit one particular range, […]

Every bout on ESPN2, HBO2 and Showtime this past weekend was, at minimum, quality, but they came in two varieties: good, and competitive; or good, and one-sided. The Juan Carlos Burgos-Yakubu Amidu, Keith Thurman-Diego Chaves and Juan Francisco Estrada-Milan Melindo were the close kind. The best of them, somehow, was of the one-sided variety — […]

The scorecards didn't always show it on the HBO2 tripleheader, but nobody had it easy in the ring in Macau, China on Saturday. Headliner and ex-Olympic gold medalist, flyweight Zou Shiming, in his second pro fight and first six-rounder, came out super-aggressive but couldn't stop Jesus Ortega (3-1 in his career) and got hit a […]

(Yakubu Amidu, left, Juan Carlos Burgos, right; via) Top junior lightweight contender Juan Carlos Burgos was taking what had the air beforehand of a stay-busy affair on ESPN2's Friday Night Fights, yet ended up nothing like it against his short-notice opponent Yakubu Amidu. After the naturally larger, relentless Amidu took the fight to Burgos for […]

(Mickey Bey, left, and John Molina, right, at the weigh-in; credit: Tom Casino, Showtime) John Molina was fighting a horrible 10th round on ShoBox Friday night, walking forward aimlessly, not throwing many punches in a replication of what he'd done wrong in earlier rounds, getting pounded by Mickey Bey to the point that it looked […]

From the outset, the audio and visual components of "The Good Son," a documentary about Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, are bracing. Here we have the story of a working class Youngstown, Ohio hero, and the soundtrack is smooth brass with spacey hip-hop beats like you'd encounter in a lower Manhattan lounge on a Thursday night, […]

(Lucas Matthysse, left, Danny Garcia, right; via) In an ideal world, it wouldn't be so flabbergasting. But this isn't an ideal world. And the Showtime pay-per-view boxing card Sept. 14 that gives fans two of the best fights in the sport on one night is downright astonishing. On Thursday, Golden Boy Promotions announced that Lucas […]

After an 11-day trip to Japan, I've returned from the East, where I saw no sign of Takashi Uchiyama or Hozumi Hasegawa but got an eyeful of sumo. First off, it was way cool. But witnessing a combat sport about which I knew very little got me to comparing it to boxing. In sumo wrestling, […]