These are two mighty fine bouts HBO has put together Saturday night featuring two rising stars, welterweight Andre Berto (right) and junior middleweight Alfredo Angulo (below). But these are not, in my view, showcase fights. Juan Urango, Berto’s opponent, and Kermit Cintron, Angulo’s opponent, ain’t seatwarmers for bigger names. Although Berto and Angulo could theoretically […]

[Now UPDATED with video of Nishioka-Gonzalez and Marquez-Mendoza.] They are two of the more entertaining Mexican fighters of recent years, Rafael Marquez and Jhonny Gonzalez, and if they continued their career rehabilitations with wins Saturday night on TV Azteca, they were on a collision course. Marquez scored an early knockout in his long-awaited ring return, […]

Friday Night Fights recap, “what I learned”-style:

In this edition of Quick Jabs: We’ll summarize the key weekend bouts; examine some fallout, good and bad, from Andre Ward-Edison Miranda; rejoice in the possible revival of Bernard Hopkins-Tomasz Adamek and Chad Dawson-Glen Johnson II; and take a look at what’s up next — or isn’t — for Paul Williams, Timothy Bradley and others. […]

Remember this post the other day about how Juan Manuel Marquez had agreed to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. at 147 lbs. on July 18, thereby making the fight even harder on himself? Well (h/t johnpaulfutbol), ESPN’s Dan Rafael reports, contrary to what Ring reported to prompt my post, that the fight will be at no […]

If I were building the ideal heavyweight from scratch, he might, after all, end up looking a bit like Tor Hamer, a 5-0 prospect whom I recently had the pleasure of interviewing. I’ve made no effort to conceal my disdain for the modern heavyweight, preferring the cruiserweights as a closer facsimile of the heavyweights of […]

Ring reports today that Juan Manuel Marquez has agreed to a 147-pound welterweight limit for his July 18 pay-per-view fight with Floyd Mayweather, and it’s hard to imagine how such a thing came to be, if it’s accurate. It’s as stupid as stupid gets for the Marquez camp. After all, one of the quite understandable […]

There’s a crucial quote in a Maxboxing.com piece today that illustrates something that’s pretty widely understood, but that rarely has been laid out so explicitly, about a fundamental issue that confronts boxing as a whole. That is: The root of ongoing power and influence exercised by sanctioning organizations like the WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF […]

2004 Olympic gold medalist Andre Ward put together a terrific performance in a dominant decision win over fellow super middleweight Edison Miranda on Showtime Saturday. For a long time, we’ve been wondering whether Ward is legitimate, considering how slowly his career has proceeded. Now we know he is. Ward answered one of the biggest questions […]

Some decent action on ESPN2′s Friday Night Fights last night, plus some intrigue in a couple overseas bouts, with footage of one.

The friendly-looking patriot to your right is heavyweight prospect Devin Vargas, who’s featured on ESPN2′s Friday Night Fights this weekend. He leads off a shortish (by TQBR standards) Round and Round column this week. There wasn’t much non-fights-in-the-works news this week that I haven’t covered already. Other than, like, congratulating lightweight Juan Diaz for graduating […]

I spoke too soon.

As Renaissance Men go, Manny Pacquiao puts Thomas Jefferson to shame. And in case you missed it, the pound-for-pound king and new junior welterweight champion just added two more professions to his long list this week. 

(Andre Ward; photo credit Jan Sanders, Goossen Tutor Promotions) Do you remember 2004? Usher, assisted by Ludacris and Lil Jon, was tearing up the charts with his single “Yeah!” (Usher: “She’s ready to blow.” Lil Jon: “WATCH OUT!”). Ronald Reagan and Ol’ Dirty Bastard died. Two teams ago, Ron Artest stormed into the stands at […]

For a weekend where the only major televised bout was a wholly unnecessary rematch between light heavyweights Chad Dawson and Antonio Tarver, there sure was a lot of boxing stuff between approximately Friday and Sunday. Like more information on Manny Pacquiao’s plans. Or the sudden reappearance of the Versus network to the boxing game. Or […]