0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/1/2012
NEW YORK CITY — Arriving slightly late here in storied Madison Square Garden. Usually cards start at 6 p.m., but this one kicked off earlier. Bad planning, Starks. Some have criticized this undercard and I can see why, but I like attending all live fights, so I intend to catch the remainder of them, anyway. […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
We're about to slop a week's worth of big ol' Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez IV coverage on to the table, so best clean our plates, via Quick Jabs. First things first: Stephen Espinoza of Showtime answered a couple questions when I spoke with him Friday that I haven't been able to relay until now. Here […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/30/2012
In Germany, the television network ARD makes advanced drug testing a precondition for any boxer appearing on its network. That's an answer to the problem of performance enhancing drugs that some fans and writers have embraced in the United States, as a variety of boxers have tested positive for banned substances in 2012. But, for […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
(Miguel Cotto, left, weighed in at 153.6, while Austin Trout, right, weighed in at 154 exactly after stripping to his birthday suit; photo credit, Carlos Suarez, Jr., FightImages.com) NEW YORK CITY — TQBR caught up with Golden Boy Promotions' Richard Schaefer Friday at the weigh-in for Miguel Cotto vs. Austin Trout the next night on […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
Miguel Cotto is, rather literally, boxing at Madison Square Garden. And he returns Saturday on Showtime to the home where he's sold tens of thousands of tickets, filled up sloshing buckets full of his own blood, broken men's faces (really), avenged dark losses and repeatedly turned the one-time "Mecca of boxing" into the world's loudest […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
When HBO Sports churned out a series of 30-minute documentaries on twelve of the best fights broadcast on their airwaves, we watched. In 2003, HBO took us inside twelve different rivalries, giving us certain insights that you wouldn't have known unless you were an insider when the fights took place. For some of these fights, […]
0 comments by Jeff Pryor on 11/29/2012
Andre Berto never was or will be what HBO tried to make him out to be…. Though the carefully maneuvered prizefighter has been a mainstay on the airwaves of the premium pay network for around six years, there is a truth about him that has taken that length of that time to emerge. His gaudy […]
0 comments by Alex McClintock on 11/28/2012
It seems appropriate to head the schedule with a “Gangnam Style” video, since the Korean pop sensation became YouTube’s most viewed video ever this week with 831 million views. We’re all terribly sick of it, but that Christmas lights display is pretty cool. Now let’s forget it ever happened, which we were probably going to […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/27/2012
(Robert Guerrero, left, Andre Berto, right; via) It was another fine weekend for the sport of boxing: An ugly, mauling affair between an undersized welterweight and a much-maligned, frequently pampered villain metamorphosed into a demonstration of human willpower at nearly its finest, while an old hero made an initially electrifying comeback that turned disappointing yet […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/26/2012
NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND — Gateshead’s Paul O’Hagan made a splash on his professional debut when he flattened fellow cruiserweight Akash Hussein in the opening round at Newcastle’s O2 Academy. O’Hagan, who arrived with a winning record assembled on the unlicensed white collar circuit, knocked the stuffing out of Hussein with a crunching right and then a […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/25/2012
The $2.6 million in purses shared by welterweights Robert Guerrero and Andre Berto for Saturday night's HBO main event raised a few eyebrows, but both men had to work hard for every penny in what was the grittiest fight of 2012 so far. It was a bout where both men fought half-blind, through swollen eyes and […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/24/2012
Ricky Hatton used to live by the body shot. His comeback bid died by it Saturday, as Vyacheslav Senchenko stopped Hatton on Showtime with a left hook liver punch in the 9th round of a fight that Hatton might've won on the scorecards if he'd made it one more round. Hatton wouldn't say afterward whether […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
There exists a nether zone, a big one, at welterweight after anyone named Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, and anyone who isn't them. Kell Brook lives there in that secondary zone. Devon Alexander lives there. Those two might fight one another soon, so they're unlikely to ask for sugar from each other in this neighborhood. […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/23/2012
From a pure boxing standpoint, the comeback of Ricky Hatton Saturday on Showtime after suffering a series of brutal knockouts is probably ill-advised. But anyone involved whose trick knee aches when it's about to precipitate money probably is happy Great Britain's most popular fighter of the past decade, the gregarious, blue collar everyman from Manchester, […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 11/22/2012
Who hates the Transnational Boxing Ratings Board? Julio Ceja. Julio Ceja hates the Transnational Boxing Ratings Board, that’s who. For under its former guise and back when The Queensberry Rules’ annual guide to the hardest punchers in boxing relied solely upon the rankings of Ring Magazine in order to separate the sport’s swatters from its […]
