0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/12/2013
If spoil sports aren't your flavor, perhaps a pair of refreshing counter left hook knockouts from the past weekend can cleanse the palate? Edgar Sosa did in Ulises Solis with one in a meaningful flyweight bout, finally scoring a victory over his thrice-rival. Junior lightweight Argenis Mendez, too, got his revenge in a rematch against […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/9/2013
(Hugo Centeno, Jr. pops Keandre Leatherwood; photo credit: Tom Casino, Showtime) You would think that if one boxer beat another by a near shutout, he'd walk away shiny and glorious, especially if he was a prospect facing his most difficult opponent to date on ShoBox. Yet, Friday on Showtime's prospect-featuring program, junior middleweight Hugo Centeno, […]
-230x168.jpg)
0 comments by Tim Starks
“Hail to the Victors” was not the theme of ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights on March 8 as junior welterweight Emmanuel Taylor defeated Victor Cayo by technical knockout in the main event from the Resorts Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City, N.J. The scheduled 10-round match was a war of attrition that was both exciting and […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/8/2013
America just don't know. That's Victor Ortiz in a publicity shot for Dancing With The Stars; he looks like he's got his VO FaceLube on in that very, very baby blue photograph, or else it's shopped to the max and DUDE WATCH OUT THERE ARE SOME FIREWORKS GOING OFF RIGHT BEHIND YOU. Although for now […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
Time waits for no man, except, perhaps, Bernard Hopkins. The 48-year-old has fought at a high level despite a decrepit-for-boxing age far later than he has had any right to, and probably better than anyone ever has in the history of the sport. As his Saturday showdown on HBO with Tavoris Cloud nears, though, one […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/4/2013
That’s me in the blue up there, pushing my punches and falling off to the side. Like a handful of current boxing writers, I’ve tried my hand at the busted beak business. I did OK, won four out of my five amateur bouts and managed to avoid getting badly hurt. Giving the sweet science a […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/3/2013
Johannesburg has inspired all manner of nicknames but there was only one word for the welterweight rumpus it hosted Saturday night: ugly. In a hard-fought but bitty main-event, at the Sandton Convention Centre, local fighter Chris “The Heat” van Heerden weathered a badly gashed right eye to outscore Mancunian Matthew “Magic Man” Hatton over 12 […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
(Richard Abril punches Sharif Bogere; photo credit: Tom Casino, Showtime) Richard Abril may have won the unanimous decision Saturday on Showtime over Sharif Bogere, but he might never truly thrive in boxing, so cringe-worthy is his style. Bogere was a willing partner in the mauling and fouling, unfortunately, to collaborate for an ugly, ugly, ugly […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 2/27/2013
Boxing promoter 50 Cent is one of our own now, which means we have to talk about him more often. This failed smooch with Erin Andrews has gotten a lot of attention, but people haven't noticed quite as much the way he goes all creepshow following her around afterward. Female sideline promoters and guys who […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 2/23/2013
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Lamont Peterson looked like he was asleep through three rounds of his comeback fight with Kendall Holt on ESPN2's Friday Night Fights. But he woke up in the 4th round, and after a blistering attack, it was Holt who was left drowsy — referee Tony Weeks halted the bout in the 8th […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
WASHINGTON, D.C. — I'm here at the Armory, where I usually come to watch the ladies roller derby each other, but now will be seeing men knock each other down. The undercard is not very much to speak of, but it started off well enough. We'll see if that holds. Come back for regular updates […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 2/22/2013
Friday Night Fights on ESPN2 makes a much-needed shift this weekend in its matchmaking from "unwatchable dreck" to "as good as the program gets" with a bout headlined by Lamont Peterson vs. Kendall Holt, two junior welterweights with top-10 talent, both trying to reestablish themselves after long layoffs. No one's saying you ought to ignore […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 2/21/2013
Matchmaking is more art than science, as we saw this weekend when Tony Thompson (D.C. BOXING WHAT UP!!!!) stunned heavyweight super-prospect David Price. I bet cowboy here thought he could take a deer. He clearly could not. Or maybe there's something to be said for going in overconfident. Cowboy probably thought, "No deer could whoop […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
Following a drug test last year that found synthetic testosterone in his system, junior welterweight Lamont Peterson couldn't fight in Nevada until a public hearing on his license. Yet, this Friday, Peterson is boxing in his native District of Columbia sans such a hearing. It's the kind of thing that gets people to wondering: Why? […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 2/20/2013
(From left to right: Lamont Peterson; trainer Barry Hunter; ring announcer Henry Jones; Kendall Holt) WASHINGTON, D.C. — There is a circular schizophrenia inherent in the build-up to Friday Night Fights' Lamont Peterson-Kendall Holt bout. The card is dubbed "Redemption," but Peterson and his crew don't ever feel they did anything wrong to make it […]
