the-fights Page 14 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Bud Crawford Is An Anomaly
The race to identify boxing’s next pay-per-view superstar started up just last week, when middleweight Gennady Golovkin and flyweight Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez both delivered brutal knockouts at Madison Square Garden. While both men were hefty favorites, they won like good favorites should, solid...
There Are Levels To This Violence
“Had I an enemy whom I wished to ruin, body and soul, I would ask no more than to turn him out into the company of pugilists and their clique, and the matter would be effected without delay.”-The Spirit of the Times, 1832....
Is It Finally Time For The Scariest Man Alive?
Tonight, on HBO pay-per-view, the next great arms race in boxing formally gets underway. Just over five months removed from the biggest financial success in its history, boxing finds itself in a not uncommon but certainly uncomfortable position: without a signature star. ...
Is The Fight Game About To Destroy Yet Another Legend?
Fedor Emelianenko will be 39 years old when he returns to Japan to fight on New Year’s Eve. His comeback will be promoted by an organization so new that it only announced its name—Rizin Fighting Federation—after announcing the fight. His most recently rumored opponent is a relatively unknown, used-t...
Jon Jones Is Back
Last April, UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones ran a red light in Albuquerque, N.M. and crashed his vehicle into a pregnant woman’s. Jones fled the scene on foot, returned to the vehicle to grab a wad of cash, then ran off again. Jones was quickly arrested, stripped of his title, and suspended...
Uriah Hall Nails Spinning Back Kick In Outstanding Display Of Violence
Someday, when he’s an old man, Uriah Hall is going to remember the time he hit a spinning back kick-to-flying knee combination on Gegard Mousasi at the Saitama Super Arena and feel all warm inside. (Mousasi will also remember this when he is an old man, though he will presumably feel somewhat differ...
A Sketchy Drug Test Didn’t Stop Vitor Belfort From Fighting At UFC 152
Just more than 24 hours ahead of their Memorial Day fight this year, UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman stepped up to his opponent, Vitor Belfort, in public, ready to accuse him of cheating....
Why Is Floyd Mayweather Fighting A Nobody This Weekend?
Throughout most of his career, Elvis Presley was the highest paid performer in show business. He was managed by an old school flim-flam artist called Colonel Tom Parker, who passed himself off as a kind of Southern gentleman even though he was actually a Dutchman named van Kuijk. ...
Demetrious Johnson And John Dodson Face The Pain, Step To This
There is an Ultimate Fighting Championship card scheduled for this Saturday, like many—probably too many—other recent Saturdays. What makes this one special is that it will be capped off by a main event of the highest caliber, with a dominant champion facing a threatening, wildly athletic challenger...
Anderson Silva Says The Steroids Found In His System Are From Penis Drugs
For a time, Brazilian mixed martial artist Anderson Silva was the greatest fighter on Earth. He might be the greatest fighter of all time. But all things, even or especially the best things, come to an end, and Silva got knocked out by Chris Weidman, and then broke his leg in the rematch, and now we...
Paulie And Danny Fought In Brooklyn, And The Better Man Survived
Danny Garcia has a devilish face; a Luciferian goatee; a muscular physique; an evil, laconic smile; a garish fashion taste; and a goading, belligerent father. You can imagine him whipping the ass of cowering middle school classmates for kicks. ...
The Greatest Boxer Alive Is Too Good For His Sport
Guillermo Rigondeaux—El Chacal, or The Jackal—is by far the greatest fighter in the world today. He may be the greatest fighter of the last 20 years. Unfortunately, he will soon lose for the first time, surely by knockout, and with his defeat will come sighs of relief and a lot of people saying, “I ...
There Will Never Be Another Ronda Rousey
Ronda Rousey, the UFC women’s bantamweight champion, is defending her title on Saturday night. She will win easily....
Here's What Happened With Floyd Mayweather's Crew At That Warriors Game
Earlier this week, Oakland police’s records department said that the investigation into a possible fight between a member of Floyd Mayweather’s entourage and a woman at a Golden State Warriors playoff game was still open, and sent along a paltry, almost completely redacted incident report. So I aske...
It's Time To See If Conor McGregor, A Beautiful Troll, Can Fight
On Saturday, Irish fighter Conor McGregor will face Chad Mendes for the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s interim featherweight championship. The bout will be the final chapter of a saga over two years in the making....
No, Of Course That UFC Guy Didn't Yell About "Not For Gay Jesus" On TV
Does “Go for Jesus, not for gay Jesus, people!” sound like a plausible, idiomatic form of religious trolling to you, or does it maybe seem like the sort of infantilized structure that’s easy to map onto a non-native speaker’s syntax and pronunciation? ...
Bellator To Pay More Old People To Fistfight In Public
On Friday night, two famous grandfathers fought in a mixed martial arts match on national television for money. One of the grandfathers was Ken Shamrock, who is 51 and was knocked out in the first round by Kimbo Slice, who is 41. Many expected a depressing bout or possibly a snuff film. It was someh...
Ken Shamrock Is The World's Most Dangerous Can
Six months ago, Ken Shamrock bought an RV. Two months ago, he parked it nine hours south of his family home in Reno, Nev., right by a mixed martial arts gym, where the 51-year-old is training for his heavyweight fight tomorrow night against Kimbo Slice....
Why Are UFC Champions Hanging Out With An Accused Russian War Criminal?
Here is a delightful vignette: UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman doing his best impression of the lezginka, the national dance of the North Caucasus region of Russia, in the palace of Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic. You can see Kadyrov in the video—he’s the short, bearded gentlem...
Don't Believe The Hype: Mayweather-Pacquiao Is Not Good Vs. Evil
The many failings of Floyd Mayweather to follow the basic rules on how to be a good human being are well documented. He’s a serial woman beater who once evicted his father and pleaded no contest to threatening his children. His odiousness speaks for itself. But his competitor, Manny Pacquiao, is bus...