0 comments by Tim Starks on 8/5/2011
Welcome to the second and final installment of our examination of the alphabet title belt phenomenon. Last time, we took a magnifying glass to the question of whether the alphabet belts offered by the WBC, IBF et al should be ignored altogether. (My answer: Yes. Well, at least, after this post.) This time, we take […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 8/4/2011
When you think about light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins, the first phrase that comes to mind is, no doubt, “fashion model.” He’s such a pretty boy, that one. So naturally he — along with junior welterweight Amir Khan and amateur standout Roberto Cammarelle — is now modeling Prada sunglasses. Usually, as Don Steinberg
0 comments by Tim Starks on 8/3/2011
Occasioned by the WBC’s contemptible decision to strip Timothy Bradley of his junior welterweight belt and award it to the winner of Erik Morales and Jorge Barrios (who isn’t ranked anywhere by the WBC in any division), this week began with any number of writers weighing in on whether the alphabet title gang ought to […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 8/2/2011
Think of Open Thread like your neighborhood bar on St. Patrick’s Day. Of course there’s going to be an Irish theme and Irish music — in the metaphor, the parallel is a boxing backdrop — but no topic is off limits. Maybe you talk boxing, maybe you don’t. Either way, I say to you: Get […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
Boxing kangaroos are kind of the unofficial mascot around here, so the saga of the kangaroo who beat up an old woman was at first demoralizing (the kangaroo beat up an old woman), then heartwarming (she was damn tough about it, and not hurt badly) and finally, tragic (the ‘roo was euthanized because it was […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 7/30/2011
(Quick note: Please don’t let this post distract you from the one just below it where I grade all of boxing’s divisions; I posted it late in the day, so maybe you didn’t see it yet. Give it a look please, if you haven’t.) In his two most important fights, Lamont Peterson performed admirably against […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 7/29/2011
These are your annual summer grades for all of boxing’s weight classes, because it’s a thing that happens in other sports like when college basketball writers give grades to the various conferences, but it’s not the kind of thing that happens in ours. It is not merely an excuse to run a picture of a […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 7/28/2011
On the heels of Amir Khan’s drubbing of the anything-but-super Zab Judah, rumblings began to emerge that Floyd Mayweather was being eyed as a potential Khan opponent… in the fall of 2012, of course. I’m really looking forward to that, along with Manny Pacquiao-Brandon Rios in 2013. I hear Canelo Alvarez-Andre Ward at a 165-pound […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 7/26/2011
Maybe Bernard Hopkins “will never lose to a white boy,” but he’ll pal around with one. At the Amir Khan-Zab Judah bout over the weekend, Hopkins shared a laugh twith his old rival Joe Calzaghe, the man at whom Hopkins famously directed that racially inflammatory rhetoric. That loss to Calzaghe still bugs him and Hopkins […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 7/24/2011
In an absorbing battle between unbeaten and highly touted heavyweight prospects, Tyson Fury emerged with the British and Commonwealth heavyweight titles draped over his enormous shoulders after whipping the tough but shoddily prepared Dereck Chisora throughout twelve highly entertaining rounds. It was the perfect occasion to help ease boxing back onto terrestrial television as Fury […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
Amir “King” Khan proved he’s a rising superstar in a junior welterweight unification bout on HBO Saturday night while Zab Judah revealed himself to be only a pretender rather than one of the sport’s truly elite. From the start Khan’s superior size and reach coupled with his blinding handspeed allowed him to pepper Zab with […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 7/22/2011
I’m firing up a three-for-one column today because I’ll be away from my computer for boxing-writing purposes all weekend. Although: Our Gautham Nagesh will write up the big junior welterweight clash this weekend between Amir Khan and Zab Judah on HBO, and our Andrew Harrison will write up the heavyweight Tyson Fury-Dereck Chisora fight he […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
There are interesting developments on the homefront this weekend as boxing returns to free-to-air television for the first time in more than a year. Unbeaten heavyweight prospects Dereck “Del Boy” Chisora and Tyson Fury collide in London Saturday to contest the heavyweight championships of the Commonwealth and Great Britain in an interesting match-up that looks […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
These aren’t your prototypical career arcs for two headliners in an HBO fight, the headliners coming up this Saturday. Usually you’ll usually see one of the main event contestants who’s become consistently hot, maybe both of them, and then occasionally one of them is coming off a loss or shaky performance. Between them, Amir Khan’s […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 7/21/2011
For a sport nicknamed “the sweet science,” there’s very little scientific method applied to examining it. So over the last couple days I put on a lab coat and some goggles, and I decided to try and get as scientific as I could. The occasion for breaking out the beakers is the very important moment […]
