3,425 stories on BoxingScene are published under the Cliff Rold byline.
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By Cliff Rold - Puncher’s chance is an old adage in boxing. Typically offered as a respectful nod to the possibility of victory for an otherwise solid professional, what it really means is something else. When people say puncher’s chance, what they’re probably really saying is “I don’t think that dude has a chance in hell.”
Pick It: World Champion Artur Beterbiev vs. #6 Anthony Yarde (Saturday, ESPN+, 3:30 PM EST) - 38-year old lineal light heavyweight king Artur Beterbiev (18-0, 18 KO) has been a pro for roughly ten years and has never been the most active fighter. What the Russian bruiser does is maximize minutes and he’s on the road this weekend to see if he can maximize some more.
Every week in boxing can’t have a big fight. Any week can have a damn good one. Boxing fans got more than that last weekend with two thrilling main events. On Saturday, former Jr. middleweight titlist Liam Smith scored his fourth consecutive knockout, in the fourth round, for what may have been the biggest victory of his career. As someone who has won and lost a major belt, that may sound overstated but is it? A big domestic showdown with the son of one of the UK’s biggest stars in recent decades, Chris Eubank Jr., put butts in the seats and raised eyebrows around the world.
Pick It: TBRB #4 (160) Chris Eubank Jr. vs. #9 (154) Liam Smith (Saturday, DAZN, 2:00 PM EST) - A little extra trash talk got this fight some attention heading into the weekend. Could that mean fireworks in the ring? At the least, there should be a solid crowd in Manchester for this middleweight main event. The 33-year old Eubank (32-2,
The first big result of 2023 is in. On Friday, Jessica Nery Plata defeated Kim Clavel in a Jr. flyweight unification. GivenYokasta Valle’s decision to remain unified at strawweight instead of 108 pounds, it left Plata as the lone major titlist at Jr. flyweight. A case can be made for Plata as the new lineal queen of her class.
By Cliff Rold - It took fifty years for there to be an undisputed bantamweight champion again at bantamweight. It took about a month for the division to be left without a king again. Last Friday, as reported at BoxingScene by Jake Donovan, Naoya Inoue made the expected announcement that he was heading toward his fourth weight class. In this case, there is no hedging, no holding onto a belt or two while dipping a toe in the water. Inoue is vacating his titles and pushing his chips all in.
Road wins always feel like a little something extra. Defeating other world class professionals is hard work. Doing it in someone else’s back yard often feels like it takes a little something extra. The story of boxing is littered with tales of fighters who saw earned victories denied on the road.
By Cliff Rold - One of the best stories of 2022 was an explosion of top-tier matchmaking in women’s boxing. While women’s boxing may not have the depth of the men’s side as yet, the most anyone can ask for is to see the best in the sport facing off regularly. We got a whole lot of that last year on all points of the scale with unification fights in multiple weight classes from strawweight........
Gervonta Davis (28-0, 26 KO) packed almost 20,000 fans into the Capital One Arena on Saturday night, the latest stop on a coast to coast tour that has seen Davis become one of US boxing's biggest attractions.
It’s the fight before the fight. As boxing fans turn eyes and crossed fingers to a planned lightweight showdown between Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia, Davis is making a stop along the way. Returning to the mid-Atlantic area for the first time since his hometown knockout of Ricardo Nunez in 2019, Davis could