The Cruelest Sport - A Professional Boxing blog

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Imagine anyone re-electing Nixon, or agreeing to sail on the Titanic II, or, having miraculously escaped execution by hanging, volunteering to face the gibbet once again. When Bernard Hopkins and Chad Dawson face off Saturday night at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, it will be for the most familiar boxing reason of all: madness. Cause and effect, supply and demand, ying and yang—who needs any of that? In boxing, the closest thing to logic after more than a century of refinement remains the simple count of “10.”

How a bomb as big as Hopkins-Dawson I can produce a sequel is something only the boys in the backroom can answer. Contractual obligations, Public Enemy #1 for television networks—and, by extension, consumers—may have forced HBO to broadcast this fight, but must it be aired at such a reasonable hour? Like a midnight marquee film (think Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! or The Gore Gore Girls) Hopkins-Dawson II ought to take place in front of an audience sweating Cutty Sark or stoned out of its mind. Continue reading this post »

Juan Manuel Marquez Pictures @ BrownPlanet Musica

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Juan Manuel Marquez has answered all the questions his vocation could pose to him. Now, like a university student who has completed his degree requirements with a few credits remaining, Marquez is in position to take only the electives that interest him. So which course will Marquez choose? Continue reading this post »

Why is this man so happy?

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Abner Mares deserves a heap of credit for doing what hitherto seemed like an impossibility: making an Eric Morel fight interesting. Vying for some vacant junior featherweight trinket set at a bizarre catchweight of 120 pounds, Mares and Morel put on a lively show over 12 rounds on Saturday night at the Don Haskins Convention Center in El Paso, Texas. It was a near-shutout win for Mares, but Morel, who slipped to 46-3 (23), showed moxie in mixing it up with his younger, stronger opponent. He landed his share of uppercuts and right hands throughout and even pressed the fight late, but, at 36, Morel simply did not have the firepower to trouble Mares. Scores were 120-107 and 119-109 twice. Continue reading this post »

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“Don’t believe any of this bullshit. And don’t ever take boxing seriously. Don’t think that the boxing game is the kind of thing where you can actually identify who’s the top gunner and who’s not. This kind of stuff ain’t serious. Ain’t nothing serious about the game. Anybody that believes any of this bullshit that he reads is really, really in for a shock. ‘Cause it’s never what you read and it’s damn sure never what you think. Anything you read about or see in the ring, be sure to laugh. Laugh first ’cause that feels better than anything else I’ve ever done.”

Randall “Tex” Cobb to KO Magazine, 1982

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Fighting in Mexico City for the first time in nearly 18 years, Juan Manuel Marquez easily outpointed Serhiy Fedchenko Saturday night by the scores of 119-109, 118-110, 118-110 to win the interim WBO light welterweight title.

That Fedchenko, now 30-2 with 13 KOs, is a competent, durable fighter with reluctant hands helped make this a less than memorable affair. The Kharkov, Ukraine, native used the first two rounds to land some well-timed right hands as Marquez sized him up. Marquez, 54-6-1, with 39 KOs, began countering Fedchenko with body shots in the third, a warm-up to a brutal body attack delivered in the fourth that effectively ended any notion that it would be a competitive bout. Continue reading this post »

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In one of the most savage fights of the 20th century, mortal enemies Ad Wolgast and Battling Nelson tore at each other before 18,000 fans in Richmond, California, for the right to be called lightweight champion of the world. On February 22, 1910, these two ironmen, in the days when drawing first blood was still a betting proposition, nearly murdered each other between the ropes. Finally, after nearly two hours of combat, Wolgast won via TKO in the 40th round when referee Edward W. Smith saved a defenseless Nelson from permanent injury. In the end, neither man could escape the frightful punishment accumulated in the ring. Nelson and Wolgast both wound up in sanitariums, with Wolgast, to his last sad and distant days, still “training” for a rematch with Nelson. Andrew Fruman presents a look at the fight from the viewpoint of those involved over a century ago.

Continue reading this post »

image: critica

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Unheralded Sergio Thompson threw a rubber chicken into a bowl of Golden Boy Wagyu soup on Saturday night when he stopped Jorge Linares via TKO in two at the Oasis Hotel Complex in Cancun. Linares was floored after a barrage of spastic blows in the second, but it was a ragged cut above his left eye that halted the bout. After administering the mandatory eight, referee Bill Clancy escorted a bloody Linares, 31-3, to the ringside physician. When Dr. Manuel Jesús Paredes Zugy showed Clancy his nifty red card, the referee seemed flummoxed. Seeing his gesture lost in translation, Dr. Paredes dramatically waved off the fight himself and immediately descended the ring steps without bothering to tend to the wound that so concerned him. Continue reading this post »

image: suminstrada

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Juan Manuel López, who went before the Puerto Rico Boxing Commission last Monday in a hearing to determine disciplinary action against him for his allegations against referee Roberto Ramírez, Sr., may be facing more than just a lengthy suspension in the next few weeks. During the hearing, López shockingly admitted to suffering memory loss after some of his recent bouts. For López, whose automatic 90-day medical suspension following a TKO loss to Orlando Salido on March 10 was doubled after his troubling admission, the end of his thrilling career may be in sight. Continue reading this post »