So this is what the ESPN "marketing/programming agreement" with HBO Sports has given us, per a news release Wednesday: overload coverage across all the ESPN networks this week featuring of Manny Pacquiao Vs. Juan Manuel Marquez 4 Saturday on pay-per-view. I suppose I should say "coverage," since some of this isn't about journalism and is, rather, straightforward marketing. It's the phrase […]

Devon Alexander-Kell Brook Likely Headed for Los Angeles Last week, talks began to surface that the Jan. 19 Showtime Championship Boxing card headlined by Devon Alexander (24-1, 13 KOs) of St. Louis and Kell Brook (29-0, 19 KOs) of the United Kingdom was projected to take place in Las Vegas, likely at the MGM Grand. […]

(Austin Trout, left, Miguel Cotto, right; credit: Tom Casino, Showtime) NEW YORK CITY — Most thought Austin Trout had a dangerous style for Miguel Cotto, and Trout's speed, defense, craft and natural size advantage made him a popular upset pick for some. "Most" were right, and "some" were even righter: Trout went into Cotto's adopted […]

We're about to slop a week's worth of big ol' Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez IV coverage on to the table, so best clean our plates, via Quick Jabs. First things first: Stephen Espinoza of Showtime answered a couple questions when I spoke with him Friday that I haven't been able to relay until now. Here […]

In Germany, the television network ARD makes advanced drug testing a precondition for any boxer appearing on its network. That's an answer to the problem of performance enhancing drugs that some fans and writers have embraced in the United States, as a variety of boxers have tested positive for banned substances in 2012. But, for […]

(Miguel Cotto, left, weighed in at 153.6, while Austin Trout, right, weighed in at 154 exactly after stripping to his birthday suit; photo credit, Carlos Suarez, Jr., FightImages.com) NEW YORK CITY — TQBR caught up with Golden Boy Promotions' Richard Schaefer Friday at the weigh-in for Miguel Cotto vs. Austin Trout the next night on […]

Miguel Cotto is, rather literally, boxing at Madison Square Garden. And he returns Saturday on Showtime to the home where he's sold tens of thousands of tickets, filled up sloshing buckets full of his own blood, broken men's faces (really), avenged dark losses and repeatedly turned the one-time "Mecca of boxing" into the world's loudest […]

(Robert Guerrero, left, Andre Berto, right; via) It was another fine weekend for the sport of boxing: An ugly, mauling affair between an undersized welterweight and a much-maligned, frequently pampered villain metamorphosed into a demonstration of human willpower at nearly its finest, while an old hero made an initially electrifying comeback that turned disappointing yet […]

There exists a nether zone, a big one, at welterweight after anyone named Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, and anyone who isn't them. Kell Brook lives there in that secondary zone. Devon Alexander lives there. Those two might fight one another soon, so they're unlikely to ask for sugar from each other in this neighborhood. […]