0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/17/2012
(from left: Kell Brook, Eddie Hearn and Matthew Hatton) If a promoter’s aim is to squeeze the mostest out of the leastest then Eddie Hearn, the prodigal son of Matchroom Sports’ bedrock, Barry, appears to have the chops to fill his old man’s shoes. Hearn lays on a weekend welterweight attraction from the Motorpoint Arena, […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/16/2012
Welcome to the future. We’re now two months into the reigns of the new bosses at boxing network giants HBO and Showtime, Ken Hershman and Steven Espinoza. That’s not enough to give a passing or failing grade or anything — nor even enough of a statistical sample from which absolute conclusions of any can be […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/13/2012
That’s more like it. I second what our Patrick Connor said — we were due for some mighty good action, and Orlando Salido vs. Juan Manuel Lopez II delivered. But it isn’t unmitigated joy that boxing gave us this past weekend. Let us parse the Fight of the Yearness of the bout; the craziness of […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
I won’t make any friends with this column, so go ahead and start the hating below. I’m fortified with spiced rum. And I put my motorcycle helmet in the basement so I’m not riding tonight. Here’s the thing: I’m kind of wondering, half seriously, if there shouldn’t be some sort of extra scrutiny of boxers […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/11/2012
(Paulus Moses, left; Ricky Burns, right) Ricky Burns contained Paulus Moses in Renfrewshire on Saturday evening to affirm his position in the upper echelons of the lightweight class. The Coatbridge fighter was made to work hard in every round at the Braehead Arena, Glasgow, and while the points margins of 119-110, 120-110 and 117-111 suggested […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/9/2012
For a fight so beloved — and it’s a genuinely good fight, so it deserves all the fawning and swooning — Orlando Salido-Juan Manuel Lopez II Saturday on Showtime has an air of “race to the bottom” about it. The first fight was really just expected to be a ho-hum affair with a tint of […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
Scotland’s world-rated lightweight Ricky Burns (at right) faces a tricky assignment this weekend on his return to the Braehead Arena in Renfrewshire, Glasgow, after a short campaign on the road. His opponent, Namibian policeman Paulus Moses, is ranked one place above him with Ring Magazine (Moses holds down 6th spot at 135 lbs. with Burns […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/7/2012
Before Yuriorkis Gamboa lost his damn mind, the Internet lost its damn mind. Gamboa didn’t show up for the news conference in Miami Monday for his April fight against Brandon Rios, so contradictory, far-flung theories flew like so many chicken feathers as though they were fact: Golden Boy was stealing Gamboa away from Top Rank! […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/4/2012
Our men Patrick Connor and Mark Ortega already covered some of the weekend’s action, but in two other weekend fights expected to be mismatches, one went the route of big-time upset — the one in the video above — and the other was even more of a mismatch than expected. Living Thai legend Pongsaklek Wonjongkam […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
WOODLAND, Calif. — Saturday night, from the Woodland Community Senior Center, 2004 U.S. Olympian Vicente Escobedo fought in his hometown for the first time in his 28-bout career, as he met Lonnie Smith of Las Vegas in the ten-round main event of TeleFutura’s Solo Boxeo. Escobedo made it a successful homecoming, dismantling Smith in the […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/2/2012
There is nothing different about this list than the last update in December. So what’s the point, you ask? For one, it’s a good excuse to look at what’s been going on, what’s not been going on or will be going on with the best fighters in the world, regardless of division. There is sometimes […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 2/28/2012
Observe the final round of a pretty intense junior bantamweight fight from the weekend. Making the fight even better, the two men are nicknamed respectively after a Disney character and a dish where seafood is marinated in citrus juice. Actually, Juan Jose Montes, the victor of the bout, has a second nickname, too: “Buffy.” Even […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 2/26/2012
Both of the winners on HBO were something of a revelation Saturday night, for different reasons. On the undercard, Adrien Broner scored a huge knockout of a the best fighter he has yet faced, Eloy Perez, looking better than ever — and showing the kind of special talent that indicates he could, just maybe, very […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 2/24/2012
UNKLE – ANOTHER NIGHT OUT dir: Toby Dye from Black Dog Films on Vimeo. For your viewing pleasure: Some cinematographically luscious boxing ritual porn, accompanied by the spectacular croonings of Mark Lanegan. For your consideration: Sports By Brooks, citing unnamed sources, saying that HBO had agreed to some pretty serious and unconscionable on-air editorial concessions […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
Both Devon Alexander and Marcos Maidana, who face one another Saturday on HBO, have spent the better part of the past few years hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Against Andriy Kotelnik and Lucas Matthysse, Alexander barely won, and plenty of observers don’t think he deserved to win either of them at all. […]
