There’s a fascinating boxing match on TV tonight between a faded, formerly great champion and a younger brawler with limited skills, but enough about the Cotto-Kamegai match on HBO. Instead of watching a real fight, millions will tune in for a glorified staring match between a middle-aged, retired, three-time ex-con…
Put down the Nate Silver blog and step back slowly.
Last month, I made a public challenge to Donald Trump, which I will repeat here: If he or either of his sons will box me for one round, I will make the maximum legal contribution to his campaign and donate $100,000 to the charity of his choice.
Tonight, the undefeated Terence “Bud” Crawford defends his 140-pound belt against fellow undefeated titleholder Viktor “Iceman” Postol on HBO Pay-Per-View. This is the rare boxing pay-per-view that is actually worth the money. Crawford is, at minimum, one of the most exciting boxing prospects in years, and perhaps the…
Welterweight Keith Thurman defeated Shawn Porter in a close decision on CBS on Saturday, drawing the highest ratings of any boxing match this year and garnering Fight of the Year talk. In the process, Thurman grew his perfect record to 27-0, with 22 KOs. At age 27, Thurman is in his physical prime, and now has an…
Yesterday, we lost Muhammad Ali, the Greatest of All Time. Note the absence of a noun in that title. He was not the Greatest Boxer of All Time; he was not the Greatest Athlete of All Time; he was not the Greatest Showman of All Time. No, Greatest stood alone, floating, butterfly-like, unencumbered by a noun or any…
There has been a lot of talk lately about Floyd Mayweather, Jr. fighting Conor McGregor. The reasons why are obvious: It would be the Freddy vs. Jason of combat sports, the bad boy box office king of one premier combat sport against the bad boy box office king of the other. Unfortunately, the much-ballyhooed fight is…
The week in boxing news was dominated by a fighter who isn’t even currently in training: Manny Pacquiao. Even after an uninspired and perhaps compromised performance against Floyd Mayweather, Pacquiao remains the biggest, most marketable name in the sport. And the race to be Pacquiao’s next foe—in what Pacquiao claims…
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, solidly outclassing…
[author note - I wrote this months ago but it got lost somewhere in the editing shuffle and I just decided, “what the hell, I’ll Kinja it...”]
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.
In the past year, Michelle Beadle has emerged as one of the most important and independent voices at ESPN. When First Take’s Stephen A. Smith suggested that battered women were guilty of provoking their assailants, it was Beadle who offered the most eloquent and vocal denunciation of Smith’s comments. A relative…
Stephen A. Smith is the ultimate low-hanging fruit. His job is to be low-hanging fruit; just noticing anything he says feels like dead-horse beating. But over the past few weeks, Stephen A. has transformed himself from garden-variety shill and troll into a kind of cartoonish super-troll. He’s the ultimate embodiment…
Katie Couric is a serious journalist. She was the first woman to anchor a network evening news broadcast without a male co-host. She has been a frontline star for all three major television networks. Her interview with Sarah Palin in 2008 may have singlehandedly changed the course of American history. She knows what…
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.
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 featuring Mexican…
Jason Whitlock is many things, all of which have been commented on extensively on this site. But I’m not here to revisit old grievances. I don’t even really have much of a grievance. I follow Whitlock on Twitter. He’s entertaining, if not consistently insightful, and innocuous enough for the most part. I say “for the…
Looks interesting....
By now, you've read or heard about Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston's explicit, detailed statement denying that he is guilty of rape, in which he (or someone writing on his behalf) makes the remarkable assertion that "[t]he only thing as vicious as rape is falsely accusing someone of rape." It's not unusual…
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 did, to be more…
