As a philosophy major in the mid 1990s, I never had a chance to do an internship. A decade’s worth of hindsight now tells me I should have been a communications major. Since everyone’s going back to school these days – “financial aid” rings so much sweeter than “unemployment” – I spent Saturday imagining myself an intern . . .
Fretting already about Pacquiao-Marquez III
August 28, 2011 By 1 Comment
A friend visited me from Mexico last week. Between trips to Austin and strolls along the San Antonio River, we had occasion to watch a number of old Marco Antonio Barrera fights – the Junior Jones debacles and the classic trilogy with Erik Morales. But it was the first Manny Pacquiao fight that filled me with a dull sense of foreboding about November.
Blood, steel, canvas and warmth
August 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
“Blood, Steel and Canvas: The Asian Odyssey of a Fighter” by Craig Alan Wilson (Diversion Books; $4.99) is a spare and enjoyable e-book that uses boxing as a celebration of life instead of using life as an excuse to box. It radiates with a light-hearted warmth that many books about our beloved sport lack.
“The most disgraceful performance by a referee that I have seen in the last 15 years”
August 14, 2011 By 1 Comment
That quote belongs to Showtime commentator Al Bernstein. Its subject is Nevada referee Russell Mora. Bernstein made the comment between rounds 11 and 12, when a replay showed Mora had called a lowblow a clean punch – a mistake he’d made numerous times during a championship fight he officiated and Showtime televised. Bernstein is not known for hyperbole; if anything he leans too far towards equanimity.
What happened when I treated my next two columns like Kelly Pavlik treated his next two fights
August 7, 2011 By 1 Comment
By now you’ve read the press release about my Monday column, the one that was to be a workaday review of Kelly Pavlik’s comeback match with Darryl Cunningham, written for a transcendent website that gets more daily hits than every boxing site combined. After that would come a masterwork that announced my comeback as a serious voice.
Alvarado, Pavlik, and Top Rank loyalty
July 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Colorado’s Mike Alvarado successfully continued his comeback Saturday. Ohio’s Kelly Pavlik will successfully continue his comeback Saturday. Top Rank continues to promote both. And American boxing aficionados who are not within driving distance of Southern California’s thriving gym scene continue to be nostalgic about better times.
Khan, Judah, and our AAA rating
July 24, 2011 By 1 Comment
Englishman Amir Khan will never fail to look unbeatable against an opponent who considers contact optional. If you are a prizefighter who relies on once-youthful reflexes to get the better of every exchange, there’s a good chance you have no chance against Khan. He is too fast and confident. He is going to hit you, and if being hit ruins your prefight strategy, ruined you will be.
A pox on the stereotypes
July 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
CORPUS CHRISTI, Tex. – Contrary to stereotypes about South Texas, held by the rest of the country, yes, but also other Texans, this city plays home to a superb contemporary-paint collection by local artists. Art Museum of South Texas is a jewel of sweeping modern canvases and craftily presented views of the bay on which it stands.
Palate cleansed
July 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Boxing insiders will forgive David Haye. Many of us have already. What he did some Saturdays ago against Wladimir Klitschko, the ballsy hustle of it, was different to us only for reasons of scale. We see the same embellishment and churlish irony from smalltime promoters each month. Supposedly, it’s part of prizefighting’s charm.
Well, that was futile
July 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In the moments after two contemporary prizefighters meet at a press conference to question each other’s class, family, sexual orientation and all the rest, each man invariably wants to beat on the other in hot blood. But by the time their fight arrives months later, each man has a higher motivation: Prevent that sonofabitch from embarrassing me in front of the world.
Alamo City surprise: Lujan levels Melligan
July 1, 2011 By 1 Comment
SAN ANTONIO – Fight fans looking for the next southpaw sensation to come out of the Philippines, someone to play heir to Manny Pacquiao, had best keep looking. Mark Melligan is not their man.
Alternate endings to a fight boxing badly needs
June 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment
We all knew Wladimir Klitschko was a chinny smart guy who took no unnecessary shots and worried openly about what might happen if the right man put a punch on his chin. We had our suspicions, expressed openly and often in the United States where he was more of an Off-Broadway attraction than a demigod, suspicions of what form he would revert to if put back in that scary mid-career place where Sanders then Brewster found him.
We demand more “Cinnamon”!
June 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment
“Give us more of Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez!” we cry. There, was that enthusiastic enough? It’s part of a new scheme to explore. If we tell the networks and promoters what they want to hear as they launch new prospects, er, champions, perhaps they’ll listen to us later when we declare “enough”?
Encounters with “Chicanito”
June 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
By now you’ve read reminiscences of Genaro Hernandez from men who knew him far better than I did. Some covered his matches, others worked with him in broadcasting, a few were his promoters. This, by contrast, is not an adequate eulogy but an account of three memorable encounters with “Chicanito” and what they taught me about the man and his profession.
Super Six, Carl Froch, and the joy of not knowing
June 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The greatest joy of Showtime’s Super Six tournament has been one of discovery – a joy that makes anything worth playing audience to. It is a different joy from what the unexpected brings. The unexpected, husband of anticipation and father of suspense, is born of wrong assumptions disproved, while discovery comes from the unknowing state that wisdom promotes.
Falling in love with Carl Froch
May 29, 2011 By 2 Comments
Prizefighting now draws near to completing its most innovative concept in ages. Showtime’s Super Six World Boxing Classic is days from matching its finalists. It is a tournament that has fully altered the professional paths of its every participant, including the network that hatched it. Whatever pundits opine of its anfractuous path, the Super Six has satisfied the praise it initially garnered.
Hopkins, a legend, squashes the haters
May 22, 2011 By 43 Comments
Apropos of my own irreverence last week, 15rounds.com’s indispensible editor Marc Abrams addressed the consequences of Saturday’s fight thusly: “A man winning the lineal light heavyweight title at 46? Yeah, I think that’s pretty (frigging) important.” I thought about that for five days and decided he was right.
“Wearing ‘West Point ‘03’ on my trunks”
May 15, 2011 By 1 Comment
It should surprise no one that boxing is a plebe-year requirement at the United States Military Academy. West Point’s ultimate purpose is to prepare students to lead men into combat, and striking and being struck in the face isn’t a bad introduction to such training. It should also surprise no one that after four years of unique preparation, West Point graduates possess a unique form of character.
Unfit for prime time
May 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment
There is a time of the year in professional golf when the four tournaments collectively known as “the majors” are finished, the Ryder Cup, in even years, is through, and made-for-television and -sponsor events happen. Men pair with women. Seniors play against their peers’ college sons. Celebrities abound. The PGA Tour offers its endorsement sparingly, and while tape-delayed telecasts do end up on network television, they get a fraction of the coverage afforded The Masters.
Sweetness that overcomes the sour
May 1, 2011 By 1 Comment
There are prizefights that begin with one participant looking so confident and establishing such a superiority of craft that you wonder if this mightn’t be a genuinely unique experience in the presence of a genuinely unique talent. But then, with a comfortable lead built, the participant takes a middle round off before ultimately showing skill enough to earn a decision victory.
Things to do while you’re in L.A.
April 24, 2011 By 45 Comments
LOS ANGELES – To live in this city one must be pathologically optimistic. It is a machine designed to do wondrous things but comprising 10 million self-interested parts. Every day two or more of these competing parts collide, and the machine seizes up. The trick to residing here is to identify the culpable pieces and assume that tomorrow, finally, the machine will run as planned.
No butts about it: Darchinyan dominates Perez
April 23, 2011 By 2 Comments
LOS ANGELES – An accidental collision of heads happened as Vic “Raging Bull” Darchinyan charged Yonnhy Perez in the fifth round of their consolation-cum-main-event bout. A cut opened over Perez’s eyes, and the match was stopped and sent to the scorecards. Those were academic, though. Perez hadn’t been in the fight for one minute of its opening 13.
Darchinyan and Perez make weight; Agbeko and Mares are missed
April 22, 2011 By 2 Comments
LOS ANGELES – Friday afternoon on the second floor of the never-ending JW Marriott Hotel in the middle of downtown, last-minute main-event bantamweights Armenian Vic Darchinyan and Colombian Yonnhy Perez made weight for their Saturday consolation fight. But in an existential twist, the room was filled with the absence of Agbeko.
Agbeko-Mares and the pursuit of authenticity
April 17, 2011 By 1 Comment
SAN ANTONIO – Saturday night as the HBO fights were getting under way, an enormous event happened here in the downtown area. Fiesta Flambeau, the annual commencement of this city’s 11-day Battle of San Jacinto celebration and our country’s largest illuminated night parade, sent brilliant floats and marching bands through the town, eliciting roars of gaiety from Texans along the route.
A Terrible difference
April 10, 2011 By 1 Comment
A suspicion was confirmed Saturday. No, it wasn’t the suspicion we all harbored about Erik “El Terrible” Morales’ shopworn frailty. Morales’ comportment in the main event of “Action Heroes” was first rate. Rather, the suspicion was that this new generation of fighters, while competitive and proud, is not what the last generation of fighters was.
Leaving a light on for “Lights Out”
April 3, 2011 By 1 Comment
There are some differences between writing for a boxing website like this one and writing for a sports website with a boxing page, like, say, CBSSports.com. The largest difference is the catering you do within the large chasm between an aficionado’s knowledge of our sport and a casual fan’s primary interests: violence, controversy, redemption. When you write about prizefighting for the casual fan, in other words, you often have to traffic in clichés.
Solis remembers while Top Rank corners
March 27, 2011 By 2 Comments
It was almost four years ago this week that Mexican Jorge Solis sat in Pico de Gallo restaurant, sipping menudo. Pico de Gallo is a colorful cousin eatery to San Antonio’s famous Mexican restaurant Mi Tierra; Pico de Gallo is not quite in Market Square, not quite as well attended, not nearly as famous.
Resisting the reactionary after a showcase weekend of misses
March 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
If there was a theme from last weekend – and you’re right to shake your head; there probably wasn’t – that theme might be: Trust your first reaction. Boxing threw a showcase for itself and succeeded in few ways. Those ways included a proof of Canadian fans’ loyalty and passion, a new euphemism for aficionados, and an enthusiasm for a prospect that stays well ahead of his accomplishments.
A marvel while it lasts
March 13, 2011 By 1 Comment
This is one of the more authentically enjoyable rides we’ve been on, isn’t it? Sergio Martinez, a man humble outside the ring as he is confident within, continues to bring pleasant surprises every time we see him. He has a naturalness to him most standout performers don’t.
A future sprinkled with Cinnamon
March 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Marco Antonio Barrera has warned us about cases like Mexican Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. No, not by name – the way Juan Manuel Marquez just did – or by specific timeframe, either. Barrera’s warnings come only by implication: boxing was off Mexico’s public airwaves for most of the last decade, and that will have consequences.