the-fights Page 17 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Paulie Malignaggi Vs. Adrien Broner: A Master Class In Macho Posturing
Imagine being a Brooklyn kid, born and raised in Brooklyn, representing Brooklyn, wearing "Brooklyn" clothes and yapping about Brooklyn! your whole life. And finally they build a big world-class stadium in Brooklyn, and you, the Brooklyn kid, get to headline a night of boxing there, and when you ge...
Floyd Mayweather Is Unbeatable. Goddammit.
Well. It turns out Floyd Mayweather has not lost a step after all. I was under the mistaken impression that Floyd Mayweather had lost a step—a tiny step, at least. After extensive review, however, we can now say that, as of the early morning hours of this past Sunday, Floyd Mayweather has not lost m...
Time To Kill Boxing's Post-Fight Interview
On Saturday night, Tim Bradley, one of the world's best welterweights, fought Ruslan Provodnikov on HBO. Bradley, who has become a champion boxer mostly by possessing a will that has never broken, took heavy punishment, but won the fight by decision, despite being knocked down in the final 10 secon...
"What Do You Want Me To Say?": A Day In The Publicity Machine With Adrien Broner, Boxing's Newest Star
Adrien "The Problem" Broner—23 years old, 135 pounds, undefeated, and one of the five or so best boxers in the world today—rolled into the lobby of 1221 Avenue of the Americas just before 10 a.m. Tuesday morning, along with two coaches, his friend, his large, superfluous security man, and a harried-...
Boxing's Great White Hope Problem; Or, Why The Fuck Was Mike Lee In A Super Bowl Commercial?
During last night's Super Bowl, one professional boxer appeared in a commercial. It was not Floyd Mayweather, and it was not Manny Pacquiao, though they are the two highest-earning athletes in all of sports. It was not any champion of any weight division at all. It was Mike Lee, a mediocre light hea...
Cotto-Trout: The Sentimental Narrative Gets Its Lip Busted
Salvador Sanchez was a great Mexican featherweight boxer who ran up a 44-1 record and won a featherweight title shortly before dying in a car crash in 1982, at the age of 23. Salvador Sanchez II is a Mexican featherweight boxer. The meaningful resemblances end there. The superficial resemblances co...
Meet Boxing's Next Big Thing: Adrien Broner, The Problem That Cannot Be Solved
Saturday night, Adrien "The Problem" Broner knocked out Antonio DeMarco in the eighth round, on HBO, after thoroughly beating his ass. If you don't watch much boxing, you may be unaware that Adrien Broner, at 23 years old, is boxing's Next Big Thing, not in the sense of The Next Big Overhyped Flavo...
How Judges Score A Boxing Match (And How Manny Pacquiao Got Screwed)
Manny Pacquiao got beaten by ghosts Saturday night. That's what boxing judges are. They are not necessarily former fighters, or coaches, or other knowledgeable figures. They are not necessarily anything. They are people chosen by opaque and obscure boxing commissions to decide the outcome of fights ...
Better Dirty Than Humbled: The Lights Go Down On The Bernard Hopkins Show
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.—For years, Bernard Hopkins has entered the ring for each of his fights wearing a black balaclava, only his eyes visible, arms crossed overhead in an "X" to signify his nickname, "The Executioner." Outside the ring, he's a chatty bald man with a flattened nose and kindly eyes, now...
When Irish Eyes Are Swollen: How Sergio Martinez Beat Matthew Macklin On St. Patrick's Day
Reputations are hard to earn. And they're hard to keep. They come with benefits. But they can also hang on a fighter like a chain, an extra burden in a sport that's hard enough as it is. Reputations can't be carried throughout a fight. They must be shed like a robe and donned again when the fight is...
No One Knows Exactly How Boxing Broke Ken Norton's Brain
LAS VEGAS—Ken Norton never fell down in 39 rounds of professional boxing with Muhammad Ali. But Ken Norton did fall down on Jan. 23, 2012, while posing for a picture after a press conference at the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas. I saw it happen. Ken Norton, the esteemed special guest...
How To Get Robbed In D.C.: Amir Khan Vs. Lamont Peterson
WASHINGTON—A black guy in dark shades and a pimp-style chinchilla coat strode through the D.C. convention center, headed toward the entrance to the fight. Ten feet behind him, a white guy in a button-up shirt surreptitiously snapped photos of him on his cell phone. "Look, a real live pimp, at the fi...
Cotto-Margarito II: Mistakes, Revenge Porn, And The Looming Dread Of Watching Miguel Cotto Fight
We all make mistakes....
Watching A Boxing Beauty Contest On A Night Of Crappy Americana
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.—Moments before each of Daniel Ponce De Leon's fights, as his final warmup, he will extend both of his arms upward and then spin them violently, in tandem, from one side to the other, like Carlton Banks dancing to "It's Not Unusual," if Carlton Banks were a rat-tailed tattooed Mex...
Floyd Patterson Was A Coward And Other Excerpts From One Of The Best Collections Of Boxing Writing In A Long Time
In the foreword to "At the Fights," a newish boxing anthology that spans over a century of pugilistic history, the novelist Colum McCann observes, quite appropriately, that, "Boxers get told to imagine punching a spot behind your opponent's head, to reach in so far that they can extend the destructi...
Who's The Cat And Who's The Mouse? Carl Froch Vs. Glen Johnson, And Other Pursuits
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — The classic "cat and mouse" game is all about well-defined roles. Hungry cat, terrified mouse. The pursuer and the pursued. It can end only with a disappointed cat, or a satisfied cat. The best the mouse can hope for is to live one more day, in terror....
A Night At The Boxing Circus With The Bros, The Modelbots, And Darryl Strawberry
It is the plight of "up and coming" boxers — any boxer who has not yet up and come — to be treated like circus performers. Their task is difficult and dangerous. Their very health is at stake. But the market for fights is only so big, and many young fighters find themselves alone in a ring fighting ...
12 Of The Year's Punchiest Hockey Fights, Evaluated By A Boxing Writer
As far as I can tell, the main difference between boxing and hockey fights is that during a hockey fight, you're standing on ice. And sliding all over the place. Therefore it becomes important to hold your opponents in place with one hand to stabilize them before you can hit them. Other than that,...
Jean Pascal Punches Bernard Hopkins In The Face During A Press Conference "For The Fans"
Jean Pascal and Bernard Hopkins got into a bit of a physical altercation during a pre-fight press conference today. Pascal ended the press conference by not-so-politely asking Hopkins to take a blood test before their fight in May. Hopkins commendable response? "Aw, hell no."...
Sergio Martinez, The Celtic War, And An Evening In Foxwoods With The Boxing Scumbags
MASHANTUCKET, Conn. — The Foxwoods Resort and Casino is an abomination that rises incongruously from the empty woods in Connecticut as if to challenge all accepted notions of urban planning, and, indeed, logic. It also has good fights....