Derek Chisora has often played a role: sell tickets and lose heroically. But he has at times been able to rip up the script and end some dreams. As retirement nears, he has three skills that I hope he passes on to the next generation.
My column:
My wife runs into B-Hop at a Philly restaurant today. She asks to take a picture with him and tells him I'm a big fan. He says to her no let's take a video.
So I now have a video of B-Hop saying "Hey Adam, eat your heart out, I'm with your wife at Cafe Lamode and you're not."
😂
“Masterclass” is used far too liberally. Fury-Wilder 2 was a punch-perfect masterclass. Last night was a very good performance by Usyk in a competitive fight. The “master” in the masterclass doesn’t normally look like this; he would barely be touched.
Not really. The masterclass was against Callum Smith. If anything, Saunders got knocked out due to overconfidence. He was winning rounds and got greedy.
Kind of sad that Terence Crawford has been inactive for 9 months for no particular reason, and it will be 11 or 12 before he's back in the ring. He's not hurt and is one of the stars of the sport. Inactivity is an unappealing aspect of contemporary boxing.
I love how Usyk, Crawford and Inoue are the best in the sport yet fight completely differently. No one way to do things. Excellence can come in many forms.
David Benavidez’s promoter
@SampsonBoxing
insists that Canelo vs Benavidez “will never happen, most likely” and says that David is “the champion of the people”.
He also indicated that Benavidez will return in November against one of Caleb Plant, David Morrell, or Jermall Charlo.
I hope all those who dismissed Wilder, called him a fraud, or worse, give him the respect he deserves. He was a formidable opponent and dropped Fury four times in the series. Fury proved he was better, but he had to endure gutcheck after gutcheck to do so.
Eddy Reynoso has now lost Ryan Garcia, Frank Sanchez, Andy Ruiz and Luis Nery in the last few years. I'm not sure what's going on there, but that's a lot of talent in the outgoing bucket.
I'm not exactly sure why certain boxing fans hate Wilder to such a degree. What is there to hate? He knocks guys out. He wants to entertain. Don't we want that from fighters?
Luke Campbell is not a sob story. He has had two title shots. He’s had a big promoter his whole career. There are lots of injustices in boxing, but facing Lomachenko and Linares isn’t one of them.
The are four things I will remember most about boxing in 2021: Fury-Wilder 3, Canelo, a year of huge upsets, and the inability of the Young Guns at 135 to fight each other.
I'm hoping that future boxing fans will revisit Deontay Wilder like many of us did with Julian Jackson. These aren't perfect fighters. But they're special punchers that come along once a generation. Too many focused on what they couldn't do instead of what they did.
Tony Bellew had all sorts of reasons not to fight Usyk and certainly not to move back down to cruiserweight to do so. Whatever happens on Saturday, he has my respect.
I don't think Pacquiao will be an easy fight for Spence by any means. Should Spence win, I'm not going to dismiss it as beating an old fighter. Pacquiao is still a dangerous dude, and I don't care if he's 42.
By the time he was 8-0, Inoue had already knocked out the top guy in two different divisions. I have no idea what this is referring to. Let everyone be great in their own way.
I give Teofimo Lopez credit for putting himself out there and going to the BWAA dinner. A lot of fighters after what just happened to him would have bailed. But he faced the industry. Shows a lot of character imo.
Regarding Canelo, the following two statements can both be true:
1. Canelo is one of the best fighters in boxing
AND
2. He has gotten favorable scorecards in all of his close fights.
This seems to be a hard concept for some boxing fans to process, but it really shouldn't be.
Shields looked great. But stop pretending that women's and men's boxing is the same sport. That's a laughable graphic about fastest fighter to win three titles.
It's crazy to think that in 2021 Manny Pacquiao is still in consideration for big fights. The dude's been at the top tier of the sport for over a generation. He won his first title in 1998!
I'd be fine with seeing Big Baby Miller banned from boxing. He's clearly not interested in following the rules of the sport. Boxing owes him nothing. Maybe it's time for him to find another line of work.
I don't understand how boxing got to the place where top fighters only fight 2x a year. I'm glad Canelo has decided to be more active. I'm sure some fighters don't wish to be more active, but for those who do, hopefully this will provide a push to their teams and networks.
If Joyce can beat Takam, he'll have wins over Takam, Dubois, Jennings, Stiverne, Hanks and Ustinov before he fights for a title shot. He's been developed very well --in with some real opponents and not spoon fed easy wins, as many fighters are these days.
Reputations are a funny thing in boxing. In the end, it was a defensive move from Canelo Alvarez, not the slick Saunders, that won the fight. BJS, like many of his peers, had been dining out on lesser competition for too long, and it showed. My column:
Oh.
Love Eddie, but how many failed drug testers were on the card in Saudi Arabia -- Whyte, Povetkin, Wach, Molina. Am I missing anyone?
No virgins in this whorehouse.
I still can’t believe DAZN pulled Chris Algieri from a broadcast. They are basically saying, we don’t want straight shooters as part of our team. Algieri has been an asset on every broadcast he’s worked. They should be lucky to have HIM.
Mayweather and now De la Hoya have both complained about there being too many belts in boxing. But their companies have been very liberal in having their guys fight for secondary belts. Talk is fine, but I'd rather see them walk the walk there.
April 1993 Ring Middleweight Rankings, and it's insane:
1. Julian Jackson
2. James Toney
3. Reggie Johnson
4. Roy Jones
5. Mike McCallum
6. Sumbu Kalambay
7. Gerald McClellan
8. Lamar Parks
9. Bernard Hopkins
10. Thomas Tate.
5 HOFamers in one division. 1 near miss SK.
Liam Williams says he wants to kill Chris Eubank and I see no outrage against it. But don’t let Deontay Wilder say that…
A. Fighters say this stuff all the time.
B. The selective outrage over Wilder was telling.
I got asked if it’s better for boxing if Joshua wins tomorrow. The best thing for boxing is legitimacy, that whoever deserves to win, wins. Everything else is secondary.
R.I.P. Harold Lederman. He taught so many of us about the finer points of professional boxing and he was just a wonderful, warm man. Over the years he would send an occasional note of encouragement about my writing. I never forgot them. He truly loved the sport.
This is why boxing fans are the best.
Some woman either:
A. Brought an extra pair of boots to throw in the ring, just in case.
B. Had no issue making her way home with one shoe.
Serious fandom.
Haney potentially not having his head or assistant trainer for the biggest fight of his life is a big deal. A lot of it is going to fall on him to make adjustments in the ring. Tough situation. Would be an enormous victory under these circumstances.
Let's say Joshua gave up his WBO belt and said he wanted to concentrate on the Fury-Wilder winner, and then he did. The public would have understood that. I'm sorry some of you can't. Joshua has a much bigger fight on the horizon than Usyk. He deserves credit for fighting Usyk.
Danny Garcia's career will look a lot better once he's retired and people will get past their antipathy towards him. Solid, world-class fighter for many years.
Take your shots at Andy Ruiz, fine. But don't call him an underachiever. Very few thought he would ever become heavyweight champion. He made it. That's the definition of achievement.
Robert Garcia said when Bam was 20 that he was already the best fighter in his gym. What a stunning statement that was at the time. But Robert knows talent.