In boxing, promoters lie, managers lie, networks lie, even the media lies. But the oddsmakers never lie. Whether a fight will be as competitive as its publicity claims can be determined by the odds set for the bout. Looking at what the oddsmakers have to say will tell you everything you need to know about the quality of most match-ups. This Saturday’s middleweight title … [Read more...]
Mayweather vs. McGregor and the snobbery of “real” boxing fans
Just the mere mention of a possible Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor bout is enough to send boxing “purists” into a downward emotional spiral. And with Floyd Mayweather’s recent announcement that he was coming out of retirement precisely for a big-money McGregor clash, the sound of mass hand-wringing and clucking of tongues is almost deafening. “Oh sweet spirit of Jack … [Read more...]
El Ciclon de Guantánamo Blew
If David Lemieux-Curtis Stevens on Saturday night was precisely the type of fight for which HBO's Boxing After Dark was designed, Yuriorkis Gamboa-Rene Alvarado was precisely the type of fight Boxing After Dark was designed to ignore. Gamboa-Alvarado was ten rounds of nothingness showcasing a multi-talented failed superstar refusing to do anything other than the bare minimum … [Read more...]
The World Boxing Super Series: Too Big to Fail or Too Ambitious to Succeed?
It's a great idea-- in principle. A $50 million, 16-man tournament in each division (two tournaments a year) featuring fighters ranked in the top 15 of the four sanctioning bodies competing for the awesome-looking Muhammad Ali Trophy That's the premise behind The World Boxing Super Series, an ambitious project officially announced on Thursday and spearheaded by the upstart … [Read more...]
Danny Garcia doesn’t care about being a fighter anymore
Danny Garcia's passive, disinterested performance against Keith Thurman on March 4 shouldn't have come as much of a surprise. Those closely following his career may have hoped that such a high profile, high stakes bout would awaken the dormant competitor in him, but the fact that it did not is no shocker. Garcia hasn't looked like a boxer with interest in boxing for a long … [Read more...]