by Fox Doucette Bernard Hopkins is the ultimate example of how taking the first professional loss can set a fighter free from the pressure that often accompanies a gaudy undefeated record. After all, if you lose your first pro fight, you never have that pressure in the first place---you can regroup, come back, and go on to become a legend. But what if B-Hop never fought … [Read more...]
Historical Fight Night: Sugar Ray Robinson vs. Carlos Monzon
by Fox Doucette Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the debut of Historical Fight Night presented by What If, where we take fighters from across eras and set them in the ring to do battle for your entertainment. Tonight, our main event features Sugar Ray Robinson taking on Carlos Monzon in a middleweight battle for the ages. The co-feature is a flyweight contest … [Read more...]
What If Arturo Gatti Never Fought Micky Ward?
by Fox Doucette Arturo “Thunder” Gatti and “Irish” Micky Ward put on what is, for your columnist's money, the greatest fight of the twenty-first century so far; better than Corrales-Castillo, better than the Israel Vazquez-Rafael Marquez fights, better than Matthysse-Molina, and for damn sure better than the “Fight of the Century”, Mayweather-Pacquiao. Ward-Gatti I, on May 18, … [Read more...]
What If Golden Boy Wins Its Lawsuit Against Al Haymon?
by Fox Doucette (author's note: I know I said I was doing a May-Pac parody with Rocky Marciano and Ezzard Charles as the players in the tale---trouble was, the jokes, which were film noir inspired, just weren't working, and the fight action itself...well, I've done that twice before. So, on short notice, you get a much shorter and less historical edition of this column---on the … [Read more...]
What If Teofilo Stevenson Went Pro? (Part 2)
by Fox Doucette When last we left Cuban sensation Teofilo Stevenson, he'd just taken his third knockout loss, falling first to Earnie Shavers and George Foreman before Muhammad Ali stopped Stevenson, still only 23 years old, on February 20, 1976. Stevenson lost the eye of the tiger after that fight; he'd been in with world championship-caliber fighters, but never sniffing the … [Read more...]