3,425 stories on BoxingScene are published under the Cliff Rold byline.
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After a bit of a slower week, boxing is all over the place this weekend. Where one won’t find a single mega-event, there are a slew of good, meaningful fights in multiple divisions across multiple continents. Arguably the most meaningful will take place on HBO (10:15 PM EST/PST). One of the sports clearest divisional kings, Jr. welterweight Terence Crawford, makes his 2017 debut and he could have his hands full.
By Cliff Rold - When watching him fight, the thing that jumps out is often best seen between rounds. It’s the eyes. There is a focus to 22-year old Gervonta Davis (17-0, 16 KO) that is hard to miss. His game is still refining, but inside he’s one of the more accurate fighters in the game. He sees the target and wears...
Heavyweight: Anthony Joshua went from untested to battle hardened in a single night, surviving a trip to the brink against Wladimir Klitschko to stop the longtime face of the class. He ascends to the top spot. Given his planned return this year, Tyson Fury remains the historical champion but feel free to regard it as Joshua’s class until proven otherwise. Bermane Stiverne exits the top ten for inactivity. Tony Bellew arrives after an upset of David Haye.
Even the people who knew didn’t really know until they saw it. There was always a healthy skepticism about the Saul Alvarez-Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fight. There was a strong (proven accurate) cadre that saw the fight a farce; another that saw Chavez making a show of it while losing (present company included, and couldn’t have been more inaccurate); and a small handful of folks who picked Chavez who should never…
By Cliff Rold - It seems boxing is all about good news these days? A strong segment of the fans want a showdown between Gennady Golovkin and Saul Alvarez? We’re getting it. Andre Ward owed Sergey Kovalev a rematch? He signed for it. Heavyweights need a classic to kick start a new era? Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko delivered it. For a smaller but loyal group of fans in the weste...
Hardcore fight followers and pouting Gennady Golovkin fans tried to downplay the fight when it was announced. They might turn out to be right. Saturday night might turn out to be a superstar beating up a super name. It could turn out to be a hell of a lot better than that.
By Cliff Rold - There’s been plenty written in the last couple of years about a change at heavyweight. Slowly little pieces were falling into place but an injury here…a layoff there…some promotional issues…change was coming about as quickly as winter in Westeros. Luckily for us, it turns out the winter of our disconten...
Boxing has great events. Boxing has great fights. Too often in recent memory, those two things haven’t aligned. Saturday they did, and it happened in the weight class that needed it the most. It happened in the division that matters the most.
One week before siblings Saul Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. face off in one of the biggest US fights of the year, Jr. middleweights Omar Chavez and Ramon Alvarez resumed their own personal feud on Saturday night at the Gimnasio Manuel Bernardo Aguirre in Chihuahua, Mexico. It was a shocking turn of fortune as the 27-year old Chavez (36-3-1, 24 KO), 156, of Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico, avenged a 2014 decision loss to 30-year old Ramon Alvarez (24-6-2, 16 KO), 156, of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, with a second round stoppage.
There’s something different, a little more exciting and dramatic, about the big fights at heavyweight. While there is room for debate about whether these are absolutely the two best active big men in the game, it feels like they are. When the two best heavyweights in the world lock horns, fans run smack into reality.