This is how tight this Showtime super middleweight tournament is: Arthur Abraham is the man to beat in the opinion of a great many; Jermain Taylor is the worst of the six in the opinion of a great many; and I don’t at all think it’s obvious who’s going to win when they meet Saturday. […]

Every time anyone is critical of Floyd Mayweather, Jr. for his opponent selection, one of his cult members comes out and says, “Be patient. He’ll fight [Insert Actual Feasible Opponent Here] next.” So how do you explain this one, cultists? How do you explain Mayweather’s promoter, Golden Boy boss Richard Schaefer, talking about him fighting a […]

(The Six of the Super, from left to right: Andre Ward, Arthur Abraham, Carl Froch, Jermain Taylor, Mikkel Kessler, Andre Dirrell) A man could go crazy correcting every lazy reporter who reports the imminent death of boxing, a near-daily journalistic phenomenon mere weeks after a fight in the United States generated 1 million pay-per-view buys […]

YouTube pirates have let me down, as no one has posted the full Fight of the Year candidate from this weekend between junior featherweight Juan Manuel Lopez and Rogers Mtagwa. Nor has anyone put up the featherweight return of Israel Vazquez. So, for this edition of Weekend Afterthoughts, I’m flying semi-blind. I’ve relied on a […]

It almost doesn’t make sense to spend much time arguing for pound-for-pound criteria, because of how subjective it is, but dammit, like I’ve said, there’s more defensible and there’s less defensible. I’ve said time and time again that pound-for-pound standings ought to be based on record of actual accomplishment, rather than what people imagine a […]

I’ve been as big a booster of Jorge Linares as anybody. The junior lightweight prospect really looked like the goods — speed, technique, power, heart. I wonder if him getting knocked out in one round in the video above shows everybody who’s been high on him is wrong, or if the unproven Juan Carlos Salgado […]

The kitty prays for me because he knows MVN is making a transition to another platform tonight and he wants that TQBR not experience severe technical difficulties in doing so. After all, severe technical difficulties are more the norm under the current platform than not, as you would know if you’ve found yourself leaving eight […]

I’m in full-on skeptical mode about anything anybody says about HBO right now, including what HBO says about HBO, but Yahoo!’s Kevin Iole has an extensive piece on the network that has some mighty interesting good news in it… if it’s true. Coming on the heels of the scathing HBO piece from last week by […]

With the return of Floyd Mayweather, Jr. has come the return of some of his more fanatical followers, as recent weeks here prove. As with all fans, there are some who are quite intelligent and respectful in their defenses of Mayweather, but there is a segment that thinks “I bet you don’t get much ass” […]

(Israel Vazquez at an open workout last week; Gene Blevins, Hoganphotos/Golden Boy Promotions) It’s good to see Izzy again, ain’t it? His return to the ring this week is naturally the highlight of the boxing schedule, thus his giant photo highlighting a blog entry about the week’s schedule. We get started early this week because […]

With haste, happenings from the weekend: I’d had that suspicion that Shane Cameron wasn’t ready, and the heavyweight got demolished in two rounds by David Tua in the New Zealand Fight of the Century. You can watch the fight here, at least until YouTube takes it down. Tua at 237 was in the best shape […]

At right is one of the badass photos from a series of photos for the Showtime Super Six tourney, taken by renowned photographer Howard Schatz. If you want to see more than just the one of super middleweight Andre Dirrell — and you should, because, did I mention, they are badass? — you can see […]

[UPDATED: Dan Rafael, one of the best beat reporters in the biz, has challenged Thomas Hauser’s figures. If Rafael’s correct — and on the outside looking in, I have no way of knowing who’s right — the central good thing about Hauser’s piece falls away. Keep this in mind as you read the below story. […]

I’m getting the open thread started a little early (it isn’t yet the 1st Of Tha Month) and at an odd hour, but it’ll go until tomorrow afternoon at least. Most of you are West Coasters anyhow. Business items: Book club discussion begins. What’d everyone think of our first book, “Hands of Stone?” I’ll save […]

When I think New Zealand, I think David Tua and I think “Flight of the Concords.” Do I leave out “Lord of the Rings” because I learned from watching “Flight of the Concords” that Kiwis hate it when you bring that up? Maybe. Or maybe I just like boxing and fake folk groups more than […]