0 comments by Matthew Swain on 2/21/2018
My undergraduate mentor always starts a piece of advice with, “My boy…” I’m 35 and he still does it. He spoke to me that way when I was a precocious 18 year old hell bent on fucking up his own life. He said it to me when I was a driven, if utterly directionless, 23 […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 2/17/2018
The World Boxing Super Series (WBSS) has been great for fans, and given the fighters involved a huge boost in marketability. Many of us had hoped that the semi finals of the super middleweight bracket would be as thrilling as those in the cruiserweight division, in which evenly matched fighters engaged in highly skilled brawls […]
0 comments by Brent Hedtke on 1/29/2018
Shortly before his death in 2011, Christopher Hitchens said of his impending mortality, “It will happen to all of us, that at some point you get tapped on the shoulder and told, not just that the party’s over, but slightly worse: the party’s going on — but you have to leave. And it’s going on […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 1/21/2018
There are a few moments that stand out from Saturday night’s Showtime main event between Errol Spence and Lamont Peterson. 1. In the 3rd round, Peterson finally got into the fight a little bit. Spence, who had been in full control to that point, amped up his activity and seemed to hit him even harder. […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/31/2017
By every visible measure, Anthony Joshua is the Prince Who Was Promised. And wielding a flaming sword, on April 29, Azor Ahai was reborn “amid smoke and salt.” The metaphor is inexact, sure. Because the foe Joshua vanquished was Wladimir Klitschko, an all-around good guy who earned new admiration that evening, there’s not a perfect […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 12/30/2017
People hate gifts. Not receiving them, people love that, but watching others receive them without merit is anathema to us unless we wish to see others suffer. For that reason, there is always a dichotomous selection of outrage and schadenfreude when someone collectively considered great is a victim of gifted cards. The “greats” are supposed […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/28/2017
Welcome to The Queensberry Rules’ annual year-end boxing awards, continuing throughout this week. Here’s how we do it around these parts: The major categories are Knockout of the Year, Fight of the Year and Fighter of the Year. For each category, we give five finalists, with video and/or relevant info. You tell us if our finalists […]
0 comments by Brent Hedtke on 12/27/2017
Boxing fans are, by nature, hipsters. In spite of — but mostly, because of — prizefighting’s ever-waning status in the hierarchy of global athletic concerns, fight fans have developed a dissentient, nonconformist mentality about our sport and toward competition in general. The desire to romanticize the nuances of two adults attempting to separate one another […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
Welcome to The Queensberry Rules’ annual year-end boxing awards, continuing throughout this week. Here’s how we do it around these parts: The major categories are Knockout of the Year, Fight of the Year and Fighter of the Year. For each category, we give five finalists, with video and/or relevant info. You tell us if our finalists […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/26/2017
Welcome to The Queensberry Rules’ annual year-end boxing awards, continuing throughout this week. Here’s how we do it around these parts: The major categories are Knockout of the Year, Fight of the Year and Fighter of the Year. For each category, we give five finalists, with video and/or relevant info. You tell us if our finalists […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/24/2017
It’s been a long time since we’ve done this, so, wow, have things changed a bunch. Beyond just a thinking and debating exercise, pound-for-pound lists have some value for a number of reasons. For one, a lot of fighters aspire to the greatness a consensus pound-for-pound king-dom symbolizes. For another, it’s a good snapshot at […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/11/2017
The cult of Guillermo Rigondeaux is small, but as the term “cult” might suggest, it’s pretty devoted. It’s had to live underground with Rigo’s long career hibernation that dates back to 2013, the year of his one and only major win against Nonito Donaire, with only the occasional decent win since. If the cultists have […]
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – DECEMBER 02: Miguel Cotto looks to punch Sadaam Ali during their Junior Middleweight bout at Madison Square Garden. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
0 comments by Brent Hedtke on 12/9/2017
Miguel Cotto is a fighter. Miguel Cotto is from Puerto Rico. Miguel Cotto’s wife is allergic to bras. These are about the only incontrovertible statements one can make about Cotto. Maybe more than any fighter in recent memory, Cotto’s legacy is perpetual fodder for debate — the kind of heated debates that generally conclude with […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/3/2017
There was no storybook ending to the Hall of Fame career of Miguel Cotto Saturday night on HBO, as his farewell bout turned into a decision loss to Sadam Ali. But there was a poetry to it: Cotto concluded his time in the ring the way he lived it, delivering one last exciting battle in […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 10/15/2017
Showtime on Saturday evening hosted three major junior middleweight match-ups, and the results were largely satisfactory. Jermell Charlo scored a stunning 1st round knockout of Erickson Lubin. Jarrett Hurd stopped Austin Trout in a bout that was competitive through most of the fight. Erislandy Lara used the main event to Lara-fy the boxing ring, stinking […]
