3,425 stories on BoxingScene are published under the Cliff Rold byline.
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By Cliff Rold - There hasn't been much positive energy coming from fans via social media. The boxing press has been less than enthused. By some accounts, tickets are still available. Really available. The debut of PBC on Fox isn't landing with a head of steam to say the least. The names are recognizable. Danny Garcia, the former jr. welter..
It wasn't always pretty. The scores that had accumulated didn't reflect the fight in the ring. Deontay Wilder should have been losing. In fight sports, none of that has to matter. Football players can't overcome a two-touchdown deficit on one Hail Mary. Baseball doesn't have a five-run Grand Slam. Fighters do. It takes one shot, and a toll of ten, to make an average night sensational.
by Cliff Rold - Some have called it the first major card of the year in the US. Just because Saturday’s show is on premium cable (Showtime, 10 PM EST/7 PM PST), and features two different heavyweight belts on the line, doesn’t make it major. If an upset occurs in the main event, it would have reverberations. 2008 US Olympic..
By Cliff Rold - This Saturday, two of boxing's ten best heavyweights will be in action in the same city, both competing for belts on the same card. Deontay Wilder and Czar Glazkov won't be fighting each other because boxing is silly that way. There might be a less impolitic way to put it but why bother? The sport works hard to make a joke of itself too often
It’s a new year and much took place in the last quarter of 2015 to shake up the pound-for-pound picture. All three of boxing’s glamour division’s have seen huge shakeups. Welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather retired, the middleweight crown changed hands, and the most dominant heavyweight title reign since Larry Holmes ruled the roost came to an end.
Cruiserweight: Krzysztof Wlodarczyk, previously fifth, has been inactive well over a year and has no fight scheduled. He exits the ratings. Entering the top ten is outstanding former Olympic champion Oleksandr Usyk. Yoan Pablo Hernandez has not fought since August 2014 but remains in the champion’s spot as he has not officially retired as yet. Were he just a rated contender he would already be gone. Were a fight between the top contenders to emerge in the near future, and his inactivity continue, his position could be reevaluated. As his inactivity continues in general, an eye will be kept on how much longer to leave him in the top spot.
By Cliff Rold - Somewhere out there are three baseball writers who thought Ken Griffey Jr. didn't deserve first-ballot entry to the Hall of Fame. They saw a player with the sweetest swing of his generation, over 600 home runs, over 500 doubles, and over 1800 RBIs, and thought, "maybe next year." About all that can be said for that is...
By Cliff Rold - It came down to a choice between two memorable affairs. Both had that one special ingredient that separates the best of nominees when we’re talking about the premiere fight of a given year: Escalation. There are many wonderful fights each and every year. Occasions where two warriors beat each other silly for our...
By Cliff Rold - Sometimes it is about what it meant as much as what happened. The biggest, most significant upsets of all time have typically come at Heavyweight. There have been great upsets in the lighter classes. Lloyd Honeyghan-Donald Curry, Randy Turpin-Ray Robinson, and Steve Cruz-Barry McGuigan were all monsters in their respective domains. They don’t lend themselves to mythmaking the way the stories of the big fellas do.
Can there be too much of a good thing? Boxing fans in 2015 had a chance to answer that question. The sport was everywhere this year in terms of television coverage. For those diehards who watch across multiple linguistic platforms, there were weeks with sometimes close to ten different fight shows from afternoon to night.