Other than that they fall on the same night and same HBO card Thanksgiving weekend in Canada — I should say, the American Thanksgiving — Saturday’s super middeweight rematch between Lucian Bute and Librado Andrade and the lightweight fight between Joan Guzman and Ali Funeka appear to have little in common. Bute-Andrade II: Canadian vs. […]

Some of you have said you wish you had the option of being able to have a picture attached to your comments, like you used to. I got you. There are these things called “Gravatars.” You can use them here at TQBR. Go to www.gravatar.com. Sign up for an account, which will be tied to […]

What a superb performance. Andre Ward dismantled Mikkel Kessler Saturday on Showtime in the Super Six tournament, easily beating the tourney co-favorite and #1 super middleweight in the world by an 11-round technical decision. Ward had a far easier time of it than the all-time best super middleweight Joe Calzaghe when Calzaghe fought Kessler two […]

HBO announced Friday that Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto did 1.25 pay-per-view buys over the weekend, giving boxing its first year where two fights hit the 1 million mark since 1999. Here’s where I’d normally say, “Take that, ‘boxing is dead’ automatons!” but everybody finally seems to get it. I can, at least for the time being, […]

  WAPAKMAN! In the above trailer for Manny Pacuqiao’s movie, you see a hilarious costume and a comical fight between a boxer and a crustacean. Your eyes don’t deceive you, but I see something deeper: The hero of a nation defeating the symbolic embodiment of the “crab mentality,” that troublesome mindset people in the Philippines […]

Overlooked, I think, in our collective amazement at what Manny Pacquiao accomplished Saturday night in knocking out Miguel Cotto was a subtle shift at the macro level that portends well for the perception of the sport of boxing as a whole. Two of the biggest newspapers in America — The New York Times and The […]

There should be no controversy about this, and no question: Manny Pacquiao fought the best version of Miguel Cotto Saturday night, as Cotto showed by fighting on equal terms with Pacquiao for five rounds, even with a pair of knockdowns. But Pacquiao, as I expected, was the truly transcendent fighter to Cotto’s ultra-elite, and that, […]

I’m a skeptical person, by nature. It’s in my day gig’s job description: We journalists must be balanced, questioning. But it is getting to where even the most hyperbolic statements about the amazing boxing career of Manny Pacquiao are at least in the ballpark of reasonable. And after Saturday night, anyone who doubts Pacquiao is, […]

We’ll get started at 9 p.m. with the liveblogging and cover all the undercard fights and the main event, but if you want to check out the untelevised undercard, it starts at 7 p.m  

There’s Ricky Hatton, Fattoning it up as he’s prone to do and being pretty amusing as he’s prone to do, this time as a participant in a WWE event this week. He’ll become important again later, per the headline. There’s more going on in the world than Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto. Here’s some of it, in […]

So continues our marathon coverage of one of the biggest fights of 2009, Manny Pacquiao against Miguel Cotto, culminating in a live blog of the bout Saturday. Previously – the importance of Pacquiao-Cotto; the two top questions for each man; keys to the fight, parts I and II; and a look at the undercard. Tomorrow — […]