The Cruelest Sport - A Professional Boxing blog

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“Yes, I was the first guy to knock him out. They gave him a long count….I knocked him out, but they gave him a 20-second count. There was a riot at ringside. They protected him at Cleveland. The referee walked me back to my corner and then he picked the count up at ‘one.’ He was supposed to start the count immediately upon him going down….It was the largest crowd they ever had in Cleveland at that time. Any fight. I got $25,000 for that fight. It was a lot of money in that time. I got half of the money. $12,500. The manager paid the expenses out of my share. This was an agreement we had. Isn’t that terrible? I got half.”

Artie Levine to Allen Bodner on his fight with Sugar Ray Robinson.

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The Cruelest Sport “Real Steel” Giveaway begins now! The two contestants with the highest score total (based on a 10-question quiz) will each win a copy of the “Real Steel” Blu-ray + DVD Combo Pack with never-before-seen bonus material to be released on January 24th by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. OMG! OMG!

You can take the quiz a maximum of three times as long as you answer all the questions with each separate entry. Leave your answers in the comments section. The Contest closes on January 24th, and the winners will be announced whenever I get around to it. Please make sure to read THE TERMS & CONDITIONS of the contest.

Here we go: Continue reading this post »

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment will be releasing REAL STEEL, starring Hugh Jackman, on Blu-ray and DVD on January 24th and The Cruelest Sport will be giving away two–two!–copies of the Blu-ray + DVD Combo Pack with never-before-seen bonus material.

This visually stunning action-adventure filled with heart and soul is a “must-add” to every home movie collection, delivering a premium in-home experience complete with knockout bonus materials that dive deeper into the action.

The Blu-ray Combo Pack, with its perfect picture and sound, delivers the ultimate punch, offering viewers a variety of supplemental bonus features that take them ringside with Director Shawn Levy on the making of the film. Exclusive features include a bare-knuckled exposé of the life story of Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), deleted and extended scenes that go deeper into the film and storylines, and a riveting profile with legendary boxing champion Sugar Ray Leonard. Plus, the revolutionary Real Steel Second Screen app lets viewers sync their iPad™ or computer with the Blu-ray movie to peel back layers of effects with progression reels, check out 360-degree turnarounds of the robots, explore seamless branching pods that delve into the cutting-edge technology used to create the fights, and much more.

HOW TO WIN

The rules are simple: On Tuesday, January 17th, The Cruelest Sport will post a boxing quiz. The two contestants–U.S. residents, only–with the highest scores on the quiz will be named winners. In case of a tie, the winners will be determined by the time-stamp of responses on The Cruelest Sport. Return here on January 17th for the quiz and for your chance to win THE CRUELEST SPORT REAL STEEL GIVEAWAY contest!

****The Cruelest Sport has not received compensation of any kind from anyone involved in the production of “Real Steel” or the Blu-Ray/DVD release of “Real Steel.” In fact, The Cruelest Sport declined freebies. This is for boxing watchdogs whose own ethics are awfully flexible or non-existent altogether, despite how often they dribble forth about how principled they are.**** Continue reading this post »

The 2012 TV boxing season opened on Friday night, with Shobox and Friday Night Fights serving up double-headers.

Shobox

In the main event at the Fantasy Springs Casino, in Indio, California, Luis Ramos Jr. did just enough to edge Raymundo Beltran over 10rounds.  The fight was a competitively matched affair, with the 23-year-old southpaw landing the flashier shots from range, typically single left hands, and Beltran, a sturdy, if unspectacular, veteran fighter, having the edge at close quarters, where he scored frequently with short one-twos.

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BRONX, NY (January 5, 2012) — Star Boxing will once again showcase one of the most promising boxers in the world, undefeated 2008 U.S. Olympian Demetrius “Boo Boo” Andrade, February 10 against rugged Philadelphian Derek “Pooh” Ennis in a 10-round bout for the vacant North American Boxing Organization (“NABO”) junior middleweight title, headlining an ESPN Friday Night Fights show at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. Continue reading this post »

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Boxing Needs You, Baby! On Arum, Pacquiao, & Mosley

Professional logicians would go mad, like blindfolded chess players, trying to make sense of boxing, its followers, and that strange hydra-headed beast, the fight media. When Bob Arum recently confirmed that Shane Mosley would be facing Manny Pacquiao in the spring, all of fistic cyberspace seemed to spontaneously combust at the announcement. Nobody, it was howled, wants to see this fight. It is an outrage! Like the Antonio Margarito-Manny Pacquiao affair, this declaration lead first to spluttering Twitter indignation and then to calls for a boycott. To his many accomplishments Manny Pacquiao, named “Boxer of the Decade” by the BWAA, can now add the unique distinction of having consecutive fights threatened with a boycott. Continue reading this post »

image: library of congress

On May 26, 1911, the first White Hope tournament, a motley assortment of eleven barnyard scrappers and dockwallopers, was held at the National Sporting Club in New York City. How such a tournament could be staged with a counterintuitive number of participants in a state where decisions were outlawed is testament to the huckster genius of Tom O’Rourke, ex-boxer, occasional promoter, full-time hustler and glib manager of, among others, African-American greats Joe Walcott and George Dixon. O’Rourke was one of several managers who smelled greenbacks in the pursuit of white fighters during the Jack Johnson era.  The national want ads, kick started by millionaire author and amateur Darwinist Jack London, sought any and all able-bodied young Americans to avenge the honor of the white race.  And there to sift through potential applicants were the likes of James J. Johnston, Dumb Dan Morgan, Bill McCarney, and Tom O’Rourke.

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BOCA RATON, Florida (December 28, 2011) – Super middleweight contender “Dangerous” Dyah Ali Davis (20-2-1, 9 KOs) is fighting his way out of the long shadow cast by his father, Howard Davis Jr., who captured a gold medal and was selected Outstanding Boxer of the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.

Dyah had hoop dreams until realizing in high school that he wasn’t heading to the NBA. Despite his pedigree, he didn’t even think about boxing until he was 23, after watching the Lennox Lewis-Vitali Klitschko fight, which convinced him that he should become a prize fighter. Continue reading this post »