Anyone who’s traded elbows in this space with Manny Pacquiao’s fans know what a freaking phenomenon the man has become, and it’s hard to dispute the ring accomplishments of the junior welterweight champion and pound-for-pound king. But there have been some recent new indicators of his success that, taken collectively, suggest he’s bigger still than […]

Enough pessimism and sadness. We’re about a month and a half away from boxing kicking off an exciting fall season, a season that just got a little plumper with the agreement reached for Vitali Klitschko-Chris Arreola on Sept. 26, one of the best heavyweight fights that can be made right now. But the fall could […]

There’s defending the sport when it needs defending, and there’s acknowledging the truth when it’s evident: Boxing didn’t cover itself in glory over the weekend, in ways both grand and small. Timothy Bradley-Nate Campbell ended in a way that left a bad taste in just about everybody’s mouths. On the same Showtime junior welterweight card, […]

Like a special edition of ShoBox, this special edition of the Open Thread features a contest where you can win some sweet prizes. As a reminder, here’s the deal and rules: Come up with a design for a t-shirt for this website. It must say “The Queensberry Rules” somewhere on it, but otherwise it’s all […]

Watching “Assault In The Ring” on HBO, the documentary about boxing’s infamous Resto-Collins scandal, filled me with icky, icky feelings. The scandal itself is plenty icky: Luis Resto gets caught with tampered gloves after beating up Billy Collins Jr. in 1983, Collins dies not long after in an apparent suicide. But the ickiness doesn’t end […]

It wasn’t necessarily the kind of entertainment we were looking for from a promising junior welterweight doubleheader, but the way both fights ended wasn’t exactly a bore, huh? Nate Campbell got jobbed, frankly, when what should have been a no decision because of a head butt ended as a 3rd round TKO loss against Timothy […]

Friday night was a bad night to be the boxer everyone was supposed to be paying attention to, both on Showtime and ESPN2. Junior lightweight prospect Marvin Quintero got stopped by would-be journeyman Tyrone Harris in the 8th in the ShoBox main event. Fun fight. The problem with Quintero isn’t that he doesn’t box enough, […]

I’m reading the book “More Information Than You Require” right now, which is fitting because that’s what this edition of Quick Jabs is (and every edition, for that matter). That includes the items in the headline, as well as the troublesome noise hinting that Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto may not happen (?); how one of this […]

I told you I was all about this weekend’s Showtime junior welterweight doubleheader. So here’s some more stuff. Above, a commercial for Timothy Bradley-Nate Campbell. After the jump, more videos spotlighting both dudes. Media picks for the Bradley-Campbell bout, a list including yours truly. I’m a little surprised by how overwhelmingly Bradley came out ahead. […]

This is the post I’d written but decided not to run — then I saw that Michael Woods, a writer whose work I admire very much, made some similar points in his own piece on the subject. If he’s put it out there, no reason for me not to put in my own thoughts. He […]

There are four, count ’em, four televised fight cards this week, plus one boxing doc’s debut. The biggest of the bunch is on Showtime Saturday, but we already covered the junior welterweight double-header featuring Timothy Bradley-Nate Campbell and Devon Alexander-Junior Witter. Normally I’d just hit the rest of the weekend’s fights in the Friday Quick […]

For the last month and a half of boxing, the pattern has gone desert/oasis/desert/oasis, and that’s going to continue until mid-September. Fortunately, though, Saturday on Showtime we’re getting the next little slice of oasis. Four top junior welterweights — two young and hungry, two veteran and crafty — are going to bring some much-needed relief […]

On Friday, Antonio Tarver will become the latest pro boxer to take a turn behind the mic when he joins the commentating team for Showtime’s ShoBox card. Tarver, still a top light heavyweight despite back-to-back losses, isn’t retiring; it’s just a guest announcing gig. I suspect, actually, he’ll do a good job. He’s a great […]

When Miguel Cotto fights Manny Pacquiao Nov. 14, Cotto’s welterweight alphabet title belt won’t be up for grabs, Cotto has decided. If it sticks, the move will spoil Pacquiao’s question for an unprecedented seventh title in a seventh division (sort of — I’ll explain at the end). But no matter. Whether Pacquiao wins another WBO, […]

There are many things besides those mentioned in the headline in this edition of Quick Jabs — like the dreamy Edwin Valero-Humberto Soto fight that may be on the Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto undercard, notes on this weekend’s fights and a good deal more — but we start with Juan Manuel Marquez. Although his Sept. 19 […]