Andre Berto-Luis Collazo was so nice, I had to watch it twice. Here are some second thoughts on Saturday night’s ultra-swell welterweight (147 lbs.) bout. (The first thoughts are here.) On closer examination, I should have scored the 11th for Berto. That would have been enough to give him the fight on my card. Berto […]

Welcome to 2009, boxing. In a big way. Welterweight (147 lbs.) Andre Berto, hailed as a potential heir as the next American star in the sport, remained undefeated Saturday night against Luis Collazo in a really close, crackerjack fight marked by dramatic swings in momentum. Depending on how ’09 shakes out, it could end up […]

I’ve been getting a kick out of the live blogging thang, so if anyone — literally, a single soul — wants to join me at a live blog Saturday night for the welterweight (147 lbs.) Andre Berto-Luis Collazo bout, just speak it. You and me’ll watch this fight together, even if nobody else joins us. […]

(Tom Casino/Showtime) Above are the two prospects who tonight will kick off the season debut of Showtime’s Shobox, the network’s show oriented toward putting youngsters in against the toughest opponents of their careers. On the left is Leonilo Miranda; on the right is Orlando Cruz. Both weighed in at 127 pounds. Both are undefeated against […]

You may know some things about Andre Berto, what from all the fancy hype he gets from the USA Todays, the ESPN the Magazines, the Deadspins. You may know he’s “one to watch in 2009,” you may have read about his poise, you may have heard he’s a lot of folks’ favorite young fighter. Here […]

Remember the avalanche of fights happening/not happening I wrote about last week? —-> It’s a really loooong avalanche. It just keeps… avalanching, or whatever the verb form of avalanche is. Let’s hit the news of the day very quickly, because with the way things are going, it’ll change by tomorrow, anyway. Manny Pacquiao has wised […]

USA Today and Ring magazine both did features recently on who might become a breakout attraction in 2009. They were both good pieces — you can read them here and here — and timely, too, since we’re going into ’09 without anyone who’s really well-established as a name in the United States on the level […]

Raise your hand if you’re surprised.

It’s early, but 2009 is starting to look like The Year Of The Withdrawal. The biggest and best fight on the tentative schedule, Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton May 2 in Las Vegas, is now in trouble. It’s not alone. Some of the troubled fights might be replaced with superior bouts, but some might not. It’s a […]

One of the roles bloggers play is functioning as a check on the media, and even though in the boxing world I’ve bounced back and forth between blogging and writing for some news sites, I occasionally feel the need to play that particularly bloggy role. With that in mind, I’d like to spend some time […]

The kickoff of the 2009 “Friday Night Fights” season on ESPN2 spotlighted a trio of Cubans, the most prominent of which were heavyweight Odlanier Solis — thought by some as a potential big man who could take the moribund division by storm — and featherweight (126 lbs.) Yuriorkis Gamboa — hailed by some (including yours […]

With a period and lower case, not with my usual exclamation point and all caps. Such tantalizing talent and such athletic gifts. But such terrible habits and such a fragile chin. It’s enough to get knocked down in every fight and win every fight by a landslide or knockout — so far. But for how […]

This is total inside baseball, but I know from personal experience that a good spat between writers (especially, as it turns out, boxing writers) can be awfully juicy: What the hell is going on with the Boxing Writers Association of America elections? Two prominent writers, Thomas Hauser and Dan Rafael, have made some acidic but […]

Oh me oh my did this week get busy fast. One day comes news that so-and-so’s fighting thus-and-such, then the very next damn day so-and-so’s fighting thus-and-so instead. Therefore, there’s lots to get to in this edition of Quick Jabs (you might even call it an avalanche –>) one day before YURIORKIS GAMBOA! returns to […]

First of all, I freely admit that I am more than a few days tardy with the news/outcry over the comments made by Ulitmate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White’s recent comments in a story by Miguel Lopez of the Long Beach Press-Telegram.  In the piece, White goes on the record criticizing the state of boxing, specifically the […]