the-fights Page 15 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
UFC Hires Former IRS Shitbag, Presumably To Oppress Its Athletes
The UFC, lately embarrassed by its fighters failing a lot of drug tests, has hired shitbag/former IRS agent Jeff Novitzky, best known as beloved baseball legend Barry Bonds’s persecutor, to be its “Vice President of Athlete Health and Performance.” This seems like a high-falutin’ and more than faint...
Idiot Referee Makes Possibly The Worst Call In UFC History
On the prelims of tonight's UFC Fight Night event in Rio de Janeiro, airing on Fox Sports 2, lightweight Leandro Silva—the fighter wearing orange in the video below—defeated Drew Dober by ... who the fuck knows?...
Jumpin' Jehoshaphat, Take A Look At This Goddamned 7-Foot Chinese Boxer
This is probably nothing. Probably, this is an oddity that will resolve itself well outside the view of the general boxing public. But just in case it isn't, this here is Taishan Dong, a 26-year-old, 7-foot, 280-pound former kickboxer out of China, and he moved to 3-0 this weekend. ...
Ronda Rousey Isn't The Female Anyone; She's The First Ronda Rousey
On Saturday night, undefeated UFC women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey took on Cat Zingano, a strong and undefeated fighter in her own right, and one of maybe two women alive who, on paper at least, possibly had a chance to at least maybe show Rousey something. Then the fight started, and it b...
Even God Cheats: How Anderson Silva Shocked Us By Doing The Expected
The Nevada State Athletic Commission is a bumbling, soulless government agency, and so a strange agent for the delivery of the message that our gods have forsaken us. They never have been particularly diligent messengers in any event, but for whatever reason—bureaucracy, incompetence, something more...
MMA Fighter Suffers Seizure After Getting Viciously Knocked Out
At an Oplot fight card held in (we believe) Russia earlier today, a fighter went into a seizure after being knocked out with a kick to the head. The footage, as seen above—it starts at about the 56:30 mark—is difficult to watch, not least because of a seemingly confused response from the referee, ...
Is Manny Pacquiao's Promoter Sabotaging The Floyd Mayweather Fight?
For years, the biggest obstacle to a Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao superfight has been the fighters' management—Pacquiao's promoter, Bob Arum, in particular....
Why Tonight's Heavyweight Title Fight Shouldn't Be On The Level
While professional boxing unquestionably often involves two fighters hitting each other as hard as possible in order to win their match, it also often puts business first. It looks as if a lot of X's and O's are being moved around in two upcoming heavyweight title bouts, presumably as long-range s...
The Night A Heartbroken George Foreman Boxed Five Men In One Hour
So I was clicking my way through the internet on this beautiful Friday afternoon, as I'm wont to do, and I happened upon this piece, inside of which was this passage:...
Mayweather Vs. Pacquiao Is (Maybe) Happening, Five Years Too Late
Manny Pacquiao has reportedly agreed to two of the key obstacles holding up his long-awaited showdown with Floyd Mayweather, Jr. First, a 60/40 split of the revenue, with Pacquiao's side taking the short end; second, a fight date on May 2, Cinco De Mayo weekend, a popular date for pay per view cards...
Jon Jones, Overachiever, Beats Alleged Cocaine Addiction In 24 Hours
A week ago, just three days after dismantling rival Daniel Cormier in a brilliant title defense, UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones announced he was entering a drug treatment facility after testing positive for cocaine on a December 4 test. "I am taking this drug treatment program very seriou...
How Jon Jones Finished Daniel Cormier
Last night, UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon "Bones" Jones defended his title against Olympian Daniel Cormier, Jones's nemesis and the one man many thought could equal him in a cage fight. Shortly after the fight, in the post-fight presser, a defeated Cormier vowed to come back stronger than eve...
How Jon Jones Became The Baddest Motherfucker On Earth
The baddest motherfucker on Earth and I are in a posh restaurant in a poor city with two guys he picked up at some point or another to shoot guns and drink beer with whenever he isn't elbowing people in the face, and we're laughing, the four of us, hearty guffaws that crash around the table. I'm t...
Bernard Hopkins Reaches The Limits Of Science
"Bernard Hopkins stood right here the other day and told me: black, he's too predictable," said one of the trainers at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn, where Hopkins had held his media workout last week. "He's too, too predictable."...
I Watched A Journeyman Fighter Get His Ass Beat In A Cage In St. Louis
From Thrown, Kerry Howley's new, great book on mixed martial arts, available now....
How Muhammad Ali's Rope-A-Dope Myth Suckered America
Myth now dominates our misunderstanding of Muhammad Ali, who was once the most accessible celebrity in the world. The truth of the man is nearly irretrievable. With Ali having receded into an exile of his own choosing, the jokes and half-truths and outright lies he once told to entertain us have h...
The Fight: Patterson Vs. Liston
Originally published in the February 1963 issue of Nugget, "The Fight: Patterson vs. Liston" also appears in At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing, edited by George Kimball and John Schulian and published in hardcover, paperback, and as an e-book by The Library of America. You can also find it...
<em>Thrown</em> Is The Only MMA Book Anyone Ever Needs To Write
Nearly no one writes really well about fighting, which I've always thought was less because of the sport itself than because of the institutions around it. Promoters, matchmakers, agents, sponsors, and reporters are, after all, at all times engaged in a conspiracy to deny the essential humanity of t...
Former UFC Champ Dominick Cruz Returns From Oblivion, Waxes Opponent
Before last night, Dominick Cruz, the UFC's one-time 135-lb. champion, hadn't fought in nearly three years due to an awful run of injuries. Then he turned up against Tayeka Mizugaki, the UFC's no. 5-ranked bantamweight, somehow looking at least as good as he ever has. Fighting is a strange sport....
You <em>Could</em> Watch Floyd Mayweather's Shitty, Overpriced PPV. But Why?
Since our article on Floyd Mayweather ran in July, I've received notes from countless fans and even a number of professional boxing writers who've said that they cannot continue to support a man with his history of battering women and utter lack of remorse. Even ESPN got in on the act—well, ESPNw d...