0 comments by Matthew Swain on 7/13/2018
There is a certain reverence that we pay to the greats. It often lasts far beyond their usefulness. It ignores or exaggerates their faults and their inevitable decline because we need to believe in greatness for our own sake. People who are otherwise ordinary will have their every action and opinion somehow treated as important […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 2/21/2018
My undergraduate mentor always starts a piece of advice with, “My boy…” I’m 35 and he still does it. He spoke to me that way when I was a precocious 18 year old hell bent on fucking up his own life. He said it to me when I was a driven, if utterly directionless, 23 […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 9/23/2017
Last Month, four of the finest fighters of their generation: Floyd Mayweather, Wladimir Klitschko, Juan Manuel Marquez, and Timothy Bradley hung up their gloves and retired. TQBR Jefe Tim Starks covered the first two here. Tardy, but resolute, I have attempted not to slip into hagiography of my favorite fighter and look afresh at one […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 8/10/2016
It’s a little anti-climactic to learn of the retirement of someone who hasn’t fought in two years. Even the reaction to the news of Marcos Maidana’s official retirement was a bit strange. Normally when fans hear a favorite fighter is leaving the sport it’s met with bitter joy because the guy is usually shot and […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 10/14/2015
It was a squeaker, one way or the other, Wednesday’s main event on ESPN — but the “house” fighter hardly ever loses that kind, and that’s just what happened when the one-dimensional yet tough Aaron Martinez decisioned a fast-fading Devon Alexander. It was an ugly welterweight match-up; Alexander held relentlessly, underdog Martinez smashed his noggin into […]
0 comments by Alex McClintock on 10/13/2015
It’s an absolute monster of a week in the boxing schedule. Not only is Kazakh menace Gennady Golovkin headlining his first pay-per-view, there are four (4!) “Premier Boxing Champions” cards on four different networks (seriously, that’s nuts) and much more besides. Gennady Golovkin vs David Lemieux, Saturday, HBO PPV, New York. Everyone’s favourite adorable/terrifying Kazakh middleweight, […]
0 comments by Lou Catalano on 9/23/2015
Amir Khan has been pounding on doors for awhile. He spent years chasing the best boxer in the eorld, Floyd Mayweather, to no avail. In fact, Mayweather seemed to revel in dangling a possible fight in front of Khan, only to rip it away like the school bully holding some poor kid’s lunch just out […]
0 comments by Lou Catalano on 5/27/2015
Chris Algieri had a really, really bad night against Manny Pacquiao the last time he was in the ring. There’s no shame in that; Pacquiao has given plenty of great fighters plenty of bad nights. But Algieri has bounced back to a headlining spot on TV, and Friday night on Spike’s “Premier Boxing Champions” broadcast, […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 5/5/2015
Let’s not pretend we really know what’s next for Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao after they faced one another this past weekend, and just tell you would might be, and should be, next for them. ****** Contractually, Mayweather owns Showtime one more fight, and he says he’ll be back in September. In the build-up for […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 4/19/2015
(LAS VEGAS — Deontay Wilder poses by his corner after going 12 rounds with Bermane Stiverne during their fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Jan. 17 [Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty Images]) With Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao right around the corner, there’s already been speculation about who, if anyone, is “next” in boxing, […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 4/18/2015
Don’t worry, everybody. Sometimes there’s a thing that happens in boxing where the conventional wisdom gets upended about a fight, and suddenly what once looked like a stellar match-up becomes a lackluster one, or vice versa. Lucas Matthysse’s declaration that he wouldn’t just purely brawl with Ruslan Provodnikov Saturday night on HBO inspired the first […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 1/1/2015
Sick of the drip-drip-drip of year end boxing awards yet? Hard to blame you, hard to blame you. So we’ll bring out two enormous platters to conclude our 2014 awards. In the first installment, that flavor is heavy and serious. In the second one, that flavor is light and fluffy. Just add “of the year” […]
0 comments by Patrick Connor on 12/15/2014
Boxing doesn’t know exactly where “across the street” is, apparently (photo via). But oddly enough, its two major network players, HBO and Showtime, seem to excel in scheduling shows across the street from one another. It was the last fight weekend of a particularly weak 2014 in boxing, so it was fitting that well over […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 12/14/2014
(Esther Lin, Showtime) In a match-up of welterweight contenders from the charming hamlet of Las Vegas, Nevada, Amir Khan put on his best performance in years. Khan (30-3, 19 KO) used his superior reach and hand speed to dominate Devon Alexander from beginning to end, earning the unanimous decision by scores of 119-109, 118-110, and […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/11/2014
Regular font: Devon Alexander vs. Amir Khan is an evenly-matched fight Saturday night on Showtime between two contenders in one of boxing’s deepest divisions. Sarcastic font: Ooooooh, thanks so veeeeerrry much, Showtime, for always providing fights JUST like this throughout 2014. It’s a weekly occurrence and if evenly-matched Showtime fights in 2014 were calories, we’d […]
