0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/31/2012
(Photos by Robert Doyle) I got to cover the 2012 Golden Gloves finals with someone who is part of the history of the Gloves, which, by the way, is celebrating its 85th anniversary this year. So I’m at what used to be called the Felt Forum with one Dennis Doyle, who was a finalist in […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/30/2012
R.I.P., Bert Sugar, the great boxing historican and icon we lost earlier this week. We talk a lot in this space about what moves casual fans, and one of the most common topics that come up when I tell people I write about boxing is, “Do you know that guy with the fedora and the […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/29/2012
I can’t say I really enjoyed HBO’s latest edition of World Championship Boxing. Carlos Molina’s style, while clinically effective, essentially threw a wet blanket on James Kirkland and any hope of an action-packed fight. Referee John Schorle’s indecisive, confusing and ultimately treacherous disqualification ruling was more of the same boxing nonsense that always seems to […]
0 comments by Jeff Pryor on 3/28/2012
(Erik Morales, right, catches Danny Garcia) What distinguishes the great Erik Morales from his contemporaries, the men he is most often compared — Marco Antonio Barrera, Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez — is that Morales never changed. While his chief rival, Barrera, reinvented himself from brawler to boxer/puncher mid-career in order to stay relevant, […]
0 comments by Alex McClintock
Fightin’ animals have been a bit of a theme for the last few weeks on the schedule, so here’s man vs. goose for your amusement. Sadly, it’s about the best fightin’ you’ll find for a little while, with the schedule really thinning out for the end of March and through April. Now that Yuriorkis Gamboa […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/27/2012
Punching is BORING. Isn’t it so INTERESTING to evaluate questions like this: What does “interfering” mean, according to the Association of Boxing Commissions? At what exact moment was Carlos Molina “down” against James Kirkland? Thanks, Texas, for repeatedly giving us the opportunity to closely scrutinize such THRILLING questions, questions that render actual fisticuffs to the […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/25/2012
Cardiff locomotive Gary Buckland chugged past an impassive Paul Truscott in Sheffield, England, on Saturday, dropping him twice (once officially) en route to a commanding unanimous decision win that was scored 119-109, 120-108 and 108-110. Buckland strolled through the first defence of his BBBofC junior lightweight crown and will now attempt to broach European championship […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
If it’s boxing in Texas, that means something shady is happening. This Saturday’s installment of “don’t get excited about a nice scrap, the Lone Star State will find some way to ruin it” came when junior middleweight James Kirkland was awarded a disqualification victory over Carlos Molina just when the fight hit its apex of […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
You’ve probably already seen it, because it’s been out since February, or maybe you haven’t, because so few have according to the view count. But boxing promoter Gary Shaw’s kid has produced such a comical musical video that it has to be seen, if you haven’t witnessed it. I love the idea that some video […]
0 comments by Patrick Connor on 3/24/2012
It was a grinding type of night on Friday Night Fights. That’s not to say it was anything you’d keep on your DVR for any extended period of time, but then quality is but a piece in the unexceptional pie we’ve been fed by ESPN2 this season. It’s one thing to settle into a boxing […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
This is the continuation and conclusion of a two-part series that began with an evaluation of Showtime under its new boxing programming leadership. Now we look at things at HBO under Ken Hershman (at right). Examining this year so far vs. last, I think HBO has improved a little under Hershman or at least treaded […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/23/2012
Immediately following this Saturday’s telecast of the NCAA men’s basketball regional finals will be the second round of Main Events’ NBC Sports “Fight Night” aired simultaneously with a solid HBO doubleheader. Despite this, both NBC and Main Events nurse high hopes as their card, featuring former two-division champion Zab Judah against the unbeaten Vernon Paris […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
This Saturday on HBO, we have a doubleheader where in each fight, either elbow grease and know-how will triumph, or else raw horsepower will. James Kirkland is like the owner of a muscle car, loud and vulgar, while Danny Garcia is more like the owner of a formula one car, speedy and nimble. But Erik […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 3/22/2012
Cardiff’s latest pocket dynamo — the free-swinging Gary Buckland — puts his freshly-gathered British junior lightweight crown on the line this weekend against Middlesbrough’s forgotten man, Paul Truscott. For the champion, it marks a return to the scene of September’s title winning triumph, a slam-bam decision victory over fellow Energizer Bunny Gary Sykes (at the […]
0 comments by Alex McClintock
You can only celebrate the zeal with which Itchy and Scratchy try to kill each other. We might not want boxers to go to their lethal extreme, but some of them (Tim Coleman, anybody?) could learn something from the cat and mouse’s commitment. Though it’s a bit depressing that the Simpsons have been on TV […]
