Maybe somewhere somehow you’ve read something about Saturday’s Miguel Cotto vs. Antonio Margarito welterweight title fight. About how it’s the going to be the greatest fight of all time, about how if there’s one fight you should watch this year this should be it, about how this is the fight to bring casual fans in, about how the action will be scintillating and non-stop, about how if you can’t get excited about this fight then you’ll never be excited about any fight ever. Ever, ever, ever.
Am I excited? Yes. Do I think it’s going to be a great fight? Of …read more

And then there were eight. Last week, USA Boxing removed Luis Yáñez, its team captain and representative at 105 lbs., from the Olympic Boxing team for disciplinary reasons. The Dallas Morning News reports that the 19-year-old Yáñez repeatedly failed to report to USA Boxing’s Colorado Springs training headquarters and refused to answer his phone for the entire month of June. As a result he is not going to Beijing.
Yáñez has his own side of the story. He says that he was tending to his sister who was in drug rehab and couldn’t be bothered to report his whereabouts to his …read more

On June 20, 1980 Montreal 1976 Olympic gold medalist Sugar Ray Leonard faced the greatest lightweight of all time Roberto Duran thus kicking off the golden age of middleweights, an era chronicled by George Kimball in his forthcoming book Four Kings. Duran outlasted Leonard in the Brawl in Montreal winning a narrow 15-round decision. Leonard, who had turned pro immediately after Games, was now 27-1 and had just lost the WBC welterweight belt.
On June 20, 2008 Athens 2004 Olympic gold medalist Andre Ward faced the serviceable Dominican fighter Jerson Ravelo winning with an 8th round TKO. Ward, …read more

The Showtime Network’s weekend of boxing began with junior middleweight Ronald Hearns (18-0) taking on Kansan Jose Luis Gonzalez (12-3-1) in the Caribbean splendor of the Grand Cayman Islands. Hearns is the son of the legendary Thomas Hearns.
It is hard not thinking about the father while watching the son.
The Motor City Cobra was in The Chosen One’s corner often taking the advice reins from his son’s trainer. After the fight Thomas had the endearing smile of a proud father. He might have been happier after this fight than he had been for any of his own. It was …read more

In the mail today I received an advanced copy of George Kimball’s forthcoming book Four Kings. The book profiles the four great middleweights of what the book’s subtitle refers to as “The Last Great Era of Boxing”: Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, and Duran. No first names are needed.
I’m usually the first person to dismiss and be angered by baby boomer claims that athletes were different then and that their era of sports was the best. The glorious eighties. Problem is that when I am confronted with their challenge of “well then, whose a great middleweight now?” I can only stammer back …read more