0 comments by Tim Starks on 1/25/2020
We’re nearing a month into this bouncing baby of a decade, and as such we’ve seen our share of boxing match-up wish lists for the new year. But let’s think about it slightly differently. If there are just a handful of fights we simply have to see in 2020 — by virtue of the general […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 1/18/2020
“My business is not prognosis, but diagnosis. I am not engaged in therapeutics, but in pathology.” H.L. Mencken wrote that in his 1926 book, “Notes on Democracy.” Here we are nearly 100 years later and it’s still true. One of the weird things about boxing, and life for that matter, is that if you spend […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 12/31/2019
“He’s not gettin’ up, Jim!” That’s all anyone has to say. You know what they’re talking about. In a single moment on Dec. 8, 2012, and with a single punch, Manny Pacquiao was rendered unconscious and mortal. And he was rendered so by the only man in eight years who’d managed to withstand him. The […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 12/26/2019
Brutality. Finality. Significance. Those are the three criteria on which we judge knockouts. The knockout of the year is seldom the most cartoonish because, well, anyone can poleaxe a 10-17 club fighter. In fact, if you’ve made it to the upper echelons of the sport, chances are extremely high that you’ve done that a few […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/24/2019
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. On the second day after a category […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/7/2019
One man burned for the win, needed it and acted like it, after taking it for granted last time. One man opted against working as hard as he should have, after originally fighting like a man who had no expectations of winning, nothing to lose and everything to gain. Heavyweight Anthony Joshua turned the tables […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 12/5/2019
The fight is being contested in Saudi Arabia, how do you feel about the 3 p.m. start time and venue? Swain: It seems a bit weird, but I like the afternoon start time. I understand the cash grab for the site fee, and I’m sure Ruiz’s team wanted a neutral site, but an open-air stadium […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 11/24/2019
As I watched Luis Ortiz crumble to the canvas Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, something struck me as familiar. It was his face. Not the unique contours of Ortiz’s cinder block head or Chubby Thanos chin — but his expression. Eyes slung sideways. Lips drawn tightly over teeth. Neck flexing vainly […]
0 comments by Brent Hedtke on 11/13/2019
Liking stuff is hard. Even if you didn’t grow up on a steady diet of punk rock and decentralized anarchist propaganda like I did, the human brain’s capacity to enjoy things is finite. One pancake is good. Two are better. Ten is suicide. And so it goes. The more things there are, the more opportunities […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 10/14/2019
Boxing is the toughest sport. Science says so! That means if you’re doing something really badass in pugilism, you’re multiplications of badass. It’s one thing to be in the toughest sport. It’s a whole ‘nother level to be the most badass within the sport. Just last month, welterweight Shawn Porter delivered a really cool moment […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 10/13/2019
Oleksandr Usyk contains multitudes. Scratch that. Not multitudes. Magnitudes. The 32-year-old Ukrainian lineal cruiserweight champ-turned-heavyweight contender is guided by two indomitable polar forces, and he brings them to bear with magnetic energy, a twinkle in his maniacal eyes, and a gnashing of his gap-toothed grin. He’d be as comfortable wearing a Kievan Rus war helmet, […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 9/29/2019
It’s hard not to think about Michael Grant. Two decades ago, Grant was boxing’s latest next big thing. A chiseled, athletic 6-foot-7 250-pounder with an 86-inch reach, Grant was a radioactive-spider-bitten unicorn — a powerful, athletic American heavyweight. Born in Chicago, he would have appeared just as formidable a figure rushing the quarterback off the […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 9/15/2019
Boxing is a cruel sport. We love to tell ourselves that it’s poetic and has the power to uplift its participants, but at its core, boxing is about hurting another human being with your fists. Obviously, there are rules, and we expect them to be enforced, but it’s always enjoyable to see a serial rule-breaker […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 9/12/2019
Few things in boxing inspire as much bile by their mere existence — or each list’s ability to inspire derision because of how obviously stupid its author is — as the mythical pound-for-pound list. That’s part of what makes them so delicious. The lists do possess a certain value, though, even the most obviously awful […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 7/16/2019
July kind of drags. For most of us, it’s hotter than Satan’s taint, and everything tends to find itself in a bit of a holding pattern. Typically there aren’t a lot of fight cards either. So, in what has been a surprisingly entertaining year to date, now feels like the exact right time to take […]
