0 comments by Jamie Rebner on 5/1/2022
Shakur Stevenson continues to impress and exceed the lofty expectations placed on him. Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, the Newark resident thoroughly dominated Oscar Valdez by unanimous decision to hand the Mexican native his first loss. Throughout the 12 rounds, Stevenson was in command and never remotely troubled by Valdez. With such […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 4/18/2022
It’s the kind of moment you want to see how a truly elite fighter handles: In the 6th round of his welterweight battle with Yordenis Ugas Saturday night, Errol Spence Jr. finally got rattled. It was a situation he gift-wrapped for Ugas, which is, certainly, a bit incriminating. With his mouthpiece knocked out, Spence just […]
0 comments by Brent Hedtke on 2/21/2022
There’s comfort in predictability. Human beings are disgusting, pattern-seeking animals attempting to find order in an increasingly chaotic world. Having our expectations met and our biases confirmed helps us feel, if momentarily, that something somewhere is in control. This is, of course, pure fantasy and we are all going to die alone, most likely in […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 1/5/2022
The business of boxing has changed. The world around us, even compared to just a couple years ago, is a very different place. But the essence of what happens between the ropes — the ancient stuff that keeps a man off the canvas, that knocks another senseless, that keeps us turning out to witness this […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 1/4/2022
Welcome back to The Queensberry Rules’ annual year-end boxing awards, continuing over the course of a 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, as […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 1/1/2022
Welcome back to The Queensberry Rules’ annual year-end boxing awards, continuing over the course of a 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, as […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 11/22/2021
The grin was the tell. Even as his brow leaked and his mouth hung open for occasional gulps of air, Terence Crawford couldn’t suppress the smile curling the corners of his lips late in Saturday’s fight at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. The world’s welterweight apex predator may have been made to labor and […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 11/19/2021
Saturday night from the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas, welterweights Terence Crawford (37-0, 28 KO) and Shawn Porter (31-3, 17 KO) will meet in a 12 round bout televised on ESPN+ pay-per-view. In preparation, the intrepid TQBR crew crawled out from under their hangovers, diaper bags, and work obligations to discuss how they see […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 5/26/2021
Imagine you’ve had a goal since childhood. It doesn’t matter what it is, but it becomes the critical motivator in your personal and professional life. Now, imagine you acheived it. And imagine if you failed. Beyond the elation and heartache in the immediate aftermath is a central question that no one can answer but you: […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 5/21/2021
The entire point of competition is to determine who is the best. Singular. However, over the last several decades, the word champion has become almost meaningless in boxing through the proliferation of alphabet participation trophies. In this era it’s always refreshing when the two best fighters in a division not only want to render those […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 4/11/2021
We can all agree Jaron “Boots” Ennis is pretty good, right? Like, that’s the minimum he is. And we can agree that knockout power hanging over his opponents as if a delayed blast fireball, simply waiting for the moment to detonate — along with his willingness to mix it up and prioritize offense — make […]
0 comments by Brent Hedtke on 3/21/2021
What were you doing when you were 22? I was living in what was ostensibly a crackhouse with two of my best friends just outside of Minneapolis. We had no running water and survived mainly on dollar store beer and the charity of friends who worked in restaurants. Bands practiced in the basement where an […]
0 comments by Brent Hedtke on 12/8/2020
Errol Spence loves horses. Apparently, that’s his thing now. That’s fine. I suppose it’s a natural progression to make once you can no longer be trusted around automobiles. It’s not weird to like horses, I suppose. I mean, depending on what it is you’re doing with, or to, them. Horses are cool, don’t get me […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 11/15/2020
Calculating precisely where Terence Crawford fits along the spectrum of boxing’s superstars is something of a fool’s errand and, if we’re being honest with ourselves, entirely beside the point. No sport is more tribal, more random in the focus of its fan adoration, nor more fickle in ascribing value to fundamentally flawed human beings — […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 9/1/2020
There are certain fighters that no one looks good against. Even the elite will struggle with them. It’s normally something about their technique or their stature that makes them difficult. The problem with Viktor Postol, for basically everyone, is that he is just under six feet tall with a nearly 74-inch wingspan. His jab is […]
