0 comments by Brent Hedtke on 6/2/2019
Anthony Joshua is, by all accounts, a genuinely good guy. The animosity being spewed toward him in the wake of his shocking knockout loss to Andy Ruiz Jr. this weekend feels, at the very least, misdirected. In boxing’s class structure though, Joshua (22-1, 21 KOs) represents the establishment, the “man” so to speak. Ruiz’s (33-1, […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 6/1/2019
Andy Ruiz, Jr. scored one of the biggest upsets in boxing history Saturday night on DAZN, ruining Anthony Joshua’s U.S. debut and dethroning the world’s top heavyweight. It’s definitely the biggest heavyweight upset since Mike Tyson vs Buster Douglas. It’s not that Ruiz wasn’t dangerous on paper. He was just on the outskirts of the […]
0 comments by Marc DiPaolo on 3/28/2019
With news breaking last week that Deontay Wilder and Dominic Breazeale will headline a Showtime Championship Boxing card on May 18 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, the heavyweight division seems to have gotten even more strained, just for the moment. Before I ruin your day and ask you how you even still put […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 1/4/2019
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 Brent Hedtke on 12/2/2018
If you saw it in a movie you wouldn’t buy it. You would roll your eyes and bemoan the director’s inability to avoid rote, boxing movie clichés. A story, a fight, and a moment like this could only come from the minds of writers with just the faintest exposure to actual prizefighting. But this was […]
0 comments by Tim Starks
Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury fought to a draw Saturday on Showtime Pay-Per-View, a heavyweight showdown that will be remembered for a few things: Fury, rising from the grave in the 12th after getting a stake through his heart. He banged his head on the ground flat on his back in a way boxers simply […]
0 comments by Jason Langendorf on 12/1/2018
We are drawn to the giants. Throughout the history of humankind, the pituitarily and radioactively enhanced in our midst – from Goliath to Godzilla, from Voltron to Valuev – have never failed to stretch our capacity for wonder. The mountains who walk among us thunder into our collective consciousness, establishing intractable dominion and, to our […]
0 comments by Brent Hedtke on 4/14/2018
The Six Greatest Self-Punches In Boxing History If football is a game of inches, as my friends who enjoy spending their Sundays being hopelessly bored assure me it is, then boxing is a game of seconds. Each tick of the clock is accompanied by countless subconscious computations which direct a fighter’s body to make the […]
0 comments by Tim Starks on 12/31/2017
By every visible measure, Anthony Joshua is the Prince Who Was Promised. And wielding a flaming sword, on April 29, Azor Ahai was reborn “amid smoke and salt.” The metaphor is inexact, sure. Because the foe Joshua vanquished was Wladimir Klitschko, an all-around good guy who earned new admiration that evening, there’s not a perfect […]
LAS VEGAS, NV – AUGUST 26: Referee Robert Byrd (R) directs Floyd Mayweather Jr. to go back to his corner at the end of the fifth round of his super welterweight boxing match aginst Conor McGregor at T-Mobile Arena on August 26, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mayweather won by 10th-round TKO. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
0 comments by Tim Starks on 8/29/2017
In the course of one month, four boxers with Hall of Fame credentials that range from “unimpeachable” to “strong” have retired. Boxing being what boxing is, retirements don’t always stick. But these four — Floyd Mayweather, Wladimir Klitschko, Juan Manuel Marquez and Timothy Bradley — have a pretty solid chance of staying away from the […]
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 29: Anthony Joshua reacts after knocking down Wladimir Klitschko during the IBF, WBA and IBO Heavyweight World Title bout at Wembley Stadium on April 29, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
0 comments by Tim Starks on 4/29/2017
The transition of power was far from peaceful. Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko traded knockdowns and momentum Saturday as the new beat the old in the best heavyweight match of consequence in ages. Joshua, the future, is now. But Klitschko, the past, made him prove he deserved it. And they delivered thrills you just don’t […]
LAS VEGAS, NV – NOVEMBER 05: Manny Pacquiao stands in the croner during his WBO welterweight championship fight against Jessie Vargas at the Thomas & Mack Center on November 5, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
0 comments by Tim Starks on 1/1/2017
Yeah, yeah, it’s “technically” not 2016 anymore, but this serves as the year-end list, mofos. We’ve got a lot of changes since the last update a couple months back, given some un-retirements and big fights that closed out the year. As always, the main standard is quality wins, especially of recent vintage. The eyeball test […]
LAS VEGAS, NV – JULY 23: WBO junior welterweight champion Terence Crawford (L) lands a body shot on WBC champion Viktor Postol of Ukraine during their unification fight at MGM Grand Garden Arena on July 23, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Crawford won by unanimous decision. (Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty Images)
0 comments by Tim Starks on 10/30/2016
It’s the kind of pastime you either hate, love to hate, or just find mildly interesting to debate: pound-for-pound updates of the best fighters in the world, regardless of weight. And boy howdy, do we ever have some movement since last time we did one one of these. We have a new man cracking the […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 10/25/2016
I’m relatively certain that I’ve never written anything complimentary about Vanes Martirosyan. In fact, I’ve probably never given any in or out of the ring action of his more than a perfunctory eye roll. But it’s been a slow couple of weeks and fuck it, here we are. Yesterday, Martirosyan went on a miniature Twitter […]
0 comments by Matthew Swain on 9/29/2016
It’s easy to love what we perceive to be perfect. It’s a childish impulse, but one to which all of us have fallen prey. Everyone has had a relationship that seemed destined for greatness fall apart when the vulnerabilities of one or both parties came to light. We either recoil in horror because we are […]
