In what was shaping up to be an excellent Friday Night Fights main event from Pala, Calif., Rustam Nugaev collected a win via stoppage when Marvin Quintero stayed on his stool after the 4th round with a reportedly injured left hand. The official score cards had the bout even, as did I, but Quintero (25-5, […]

This past autumn, across the ring, there stood the greatest boxing technician of his generation. An untouchable defensive wizard. A lightning fast sharpshooter. A stylistic nightmare in a dream bout. A fill-your-pockets purse in exchange for a cash-out curse. Floyd Mayweather took the sweetness from Saul “Cinnamon” Alvarez’s carefully prepared confection of a career and […]

It's sinister-looking redhead week in boxing (which explains the creepy picture), with Saul "Canelo" Alvarez fighting on pay-per-view against Alfredo Angulo Saturday. As usual during a PPV week, we're going to give the undercard a slightly more detailed preview treatment, as well as look at the rest of the week's fights, such as they are. […]

(Amir Khan

The Guano Apes tried to warn Robert Stieglitz with their performance right before the Arthur Abraham rematch: Don't be flying too close to the sun. But did he listen to the German metal act that named itself after shit monkeys? No, no he didn't. There were warnings we'd have good fights and/or controversial ones, and […]

(Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., left, rekindled the above magic last Saturday on HBO; via) Sometimes Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. asserts himself in the ring, using his size and brute strength to muscle around opponents en route to slowly beating them down. Other times he just gets high and eats cereal in his hot pink bikini […]

(Brian Vera, left, Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr., right; credit: Chris Farina, Top Rank) This action-packed win Saturday on HBO by Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. over Brian Vera inspired very little of the disgust of the first meeting, when Chavez got a decision he didn't deserve, abetted by a weight scandal. This time, Chavez made weight. […]

(Orlando Salido, left, Vasyl Lomachenko, right; credit: Chris Farina, Top Rank) There was nothing wrong with the judges' scorecards in the HBO meeting Saturday between grizzled veteran Orlando Salido and amateur great Vasyl Lomachenko, only with Salido's exploitation of missing weight and all the low blows he threw in the bout. It did the trick: […]

(Terence Crawford [red, white and blue trunks] topped Ricky Burns; credit:  Lawrence Lustig, Matchroom Boxing) This time, Ricky Burns couldn't benefit from an opponent quizzically quitting, like Jose Gonzalez did, or from hometown judging in Glasgow, like the kind that saved him from a loss against Raymundo Beltran. Terence Crawford was too much for Burns Saturday […]

Two stoppages, a quit, and a debatable decision. That’s how the opening round of ESPN’s Boxcino middleweight tournament ended up Friday. It was an uneven night full of uneven performances from the Horshoe Casino in Hammond, Ind., compared to the lightweight tournament’s inaugural round. In the opening bout, Daniel Edouard (23-5-2, 14 KOs) quit on […]

Styles make fights. And body types, especially when pitted against other bodies, make for styles. For those of you who may lack gray hair or memory, this is pretty much what a description of those bodies, a Tale of the Tape, is supposed to look like — what it used to look like. What, in […]

(Young Peter Jackson; via) Even the most rabid of boxing fans would have to scrape the look of perplexity off their faces if asked about that time Sim Thompkins and Aaron Lister Brown met in a ring. But tell them Young Peter Jackson and Dixie Kid squared off, and that might be speaking their language. Around the […]

In boxing, "deserve" is a word with little meaning. With the right promotional connections, with the right adviser, with the right name, with the right country of origin, you can skip directly to the front of the line. This Saturday on HBO, the two A-side boxers are the recipients of boons they have not truly […]