Fame And Fantasy In The Heavyweight Battle Of The Atlantic
A note before starting: Much of this was written before the Saturday, Sept. 22nd heavyweight title fight between Anthony Joshua and Alexander Povetkin held at Wembley Stadium in London, hence the two parts to the piece—before Wembley, and then upon arrival and afterwards. There is a lot of specula...
The Legend Of Mitch Green
A note before starting: This piece contains a lot of conversations that took place many years ago. They’re not word-for-word quotes, but they are pretty motherfucking close. The phone answering machine messages are exactly what was spoken....
Deontay Wilder Vs. Luis Ortiz: The Things I Take Back
Just before last Saturday’s fight between Deontay Wilder and Luis Ortiz, I predicted a number of things would happen when they met. I said that Wilder would win, most likely within the first three rounds. I stated unequivocally that in a legitimate fight Ortiz would beat Wilder in any manner he chos...
Boxing Is Going To Get Deontay Wilder-Anthony Joshua If It Has To Fix The Entire Heavyweight Division
On Saturday, March 3, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, Deontay Wilder, one of the worst heavyweight champions in boxing history, will successfully defend his WBC title by first-, second-, or third-round knockout of Cuba’s Luis Ortiz, the best and most dangerous heavyweight fighter today. Th...
Vasyl Lomachenko Vs. Guillermo Rigondeaux Is Boxing Fuckery At Its Finest
Vasyl Lomachenko is a gizmo. “Hi-Tech” is a fitting sobriquet for the fighter whose ring style is a dizzying arsenal of bells, whistles, buzzers, beepers, and blinking lights....
Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Vs. Conor McGregor Is The Second-Biggest Possible Fuck-You
I’ve never seen Conor McGregor fight. I don’t watch or care about MMA. That’s not a statement about, or condemnation of, McGregor or MMA; it speaks only to my own preferences and biases....
Boxing Is Betting It All On Anthony Joshua
Some of the people I write about are still alive and have done things that can’t be protected by the statute of limitations. For that reason, I won’t provide some names or talk about some things that happened. There are also people who are still alive who did me favors. I’d hardly be repaying them b...
The Time I Didn’t Have Time For Donald Trump
I thought I was just shooing away another clown. I couldn’t have known at the time that I was shooing away a clown who would wind up becoming president of the United States....
The End Of Bernard Hopkins
Bernard Hopkins, a man I both like and admire, generally, if selectively, tells the truth. But he has some cinematic set pieces, one of which involves a story of being taken aside at the time of his release from Graterford Prison and told by the warden, “I’ll see you back here in six months.”...
How British Boxing Is Taking Over The World
Boxing in the United Kingdom is rapidly moving toward a golden age, its first since before the start of the 20th century. More titles are currently held by Englishmen, Welshmen, or Irishmen than at any time since the sport went international. Some of these champions, like Sheffield’s Kell Brook, B...
This Was Ali
Muhammad Ali’s recent death has opened the floodgates for eulogies, tributes, evaluations, historical perspective analyses, and writing of nearly every kind imaginable. This isn’t surprising; Ali was, by almost any reckoning, the most celebrated sports figure ever, and the one with by far the widest...
Mediocrity Has Revitalized Boxing's Heavyweight Division
Among all of the big men in boxing right now, there is one genuinely good heavyweight. And although—or, more likely, because—Luis “King Kong” Ortiz has looked impressive in his two most recent HBO fights, no recognized fellow champions seem interested in trying to pick up his WBA belt. Ranked conten...
Why Is Floyd Mayweather Fighting A Nobody This Weekend?
Throughout most of his career, Elvis Presley was the highest paid performer in show business. He was managed by an old school flim-flam artist called Colonel Tom Parker, who passed himself off as a kind of Southern gentleman even though he was actually a Dutchman named van Kuijk. ...
The Greatest Boxer Alive Is Too Good For His Sport
Guillermo Rigondeaux—El Chacal, or The Jackal—is by far the greatest fighter in the world today. He may be the greatest fighter of the last 20 years. Unfortunately, he will soon lose for the first time, surely by knockout, and with his defeat will come sighs of relief and a lot of people saying, “I ...
Why Floyd Mayweather Is The Last Of A Kind
Why Floyd Mayweather Is The Last Of A Kind...
Playing With Ornette
On a warm, cloudy afternoon in June, Ornette Coleman and I walk from 9th Avenue to his condo on West 36th Street. I’m in New York so we can play some duets....
Why Tonight's Heavyweight Title Fight Shouldn't Be On The Level
While professional boxing unquestionably often involves two fighters hitting each other as hard as possible in order to win their match, it also often puts business first. It looks as if a lot of X's and O's are being moved around in two upcoming heavyweight title bouts, presumably as long-range s...
Why I Fixed Fights
I fixed a lot of fights over the years. In two I didn't fix but should have, people paid heavily for my carelessness. Even though I set up Mitch "Blood" Green and Leon Spinks cushion-soft in their comeback fights, I managed to get one embarrassed and the other nearly killed. There had been opportuni...