The welterweight division, post-Terence Crawford: Who rises to the top?
In light of Terence Crawford’s departure, the welterweight division is left to reshuffle and reassemble and in time find a new No. 1 – a process that begins now
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Biography
Elliot Worsell is a boxing writer whose byline first appeared in Boxing News magazine at the age of 17. He has, in the 20 years since, written for various publications, worked as press officer for two world heavyweight champions and won four first-place BWAA (Boxing Writers Association of America) awards. In addition to his boxing writing, Worsell has written about mixed martial arts for Fighters Only magazine and UFC.com, as well as worked as a publicist for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). He has also written two non-fiction books, one of which, “Dog Rounds,” was shortlisted at the British Sports Book Awards in 2018.
Area of Expertise
Long-form features, interviews, columns, previews, reports
Interests
First fight attended: Audley Harrison vs. Mike Middleton, May 19, 2001. Covered, Howard Eastman vs. Hacine Cherifi, July 25, 2003
Career Background
Number of years on the beat: 22.
Reason for doing what you do: Boxing has always been fertile ground for writers and storytellers and I have always been attracted to toxic, troubled and tragic things. I also think it’s important that boxers’ stories are told well and with a degree of creativity, not just covered or reduced to “content”.
Awards & Honors
4 first-place BWWA Writing Awards with further multiple Top 3 placements
Articles by Elliot Worsell: page 38
Pressure Fighter: How Joshua Buatsi, an old soul, deals with the pressures of today
WHEN the Beach Boys released Pet Sounds in 1966, Brian Wilson couldn’t have known that track 12, “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times”, would bring so much comfort to the disillusioned; men and women convinced they were born in the wrong era and at the wrong time. Yet time has shown that there is comfort to be found not only in that song but in the very idea that there is someone else just like you; a time traveler; someone every bit as out of place; a kindred spirit.
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Tyson Fury talks retirement, says boxing is ‘more addictive than any drug’
When Tyson Fury isn’t taunting it, or tempting it, or indeed tweeting about it at regular intervals throughout the year, he happens to be surprisingly cogent and insightful on the subject of retirement.
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Vergil Ortiz finds out that they don’t all just go away
Although Vergil Ortiz will have adequately trained for it, and indeed one day expected it, still nothing can fully prepare a puncher for the first time their opponent soaks up everything they throw at them and hardly blinks. It is usually in this moment the puncher confronts self-doubt and wonders if it is even possible to win a fight without having made some sort of impression on or dent in the opponent in front of them. It is during this moment, too, that we sometimes see the puncher succumb to the panic and nervous energy and either punch themselves out in an effort to punch through this anxiety or simply collapse, often dramatically.
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21 and Counting: Vergil Ortiz’s five best stoppage victories
WHEN you have won 21 fights in a row by knockout, there is a certain pressure and therefore incentive to keep the run going and avoid finishing a fight any other way. This pressure is something Vergil Ortiz, he of the 21 straight knockouts, will know better than most. His impressive knockout streak, meanwhile, is something he will be keen to extend when fighting Serhii Bohachuk tonight (August 10) in Las Vegas.
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The Beltline: Martin Bakole and Daniel Dubois give hope to heavyweights cut down to size
THERE is no defeat in boxing quite like the one suffered by a heavyweight. The punches responsible for it are louder, and more hurtful, and the scene of devastation is usually akin to that of a house party the morning after. Even for the lucky ones, the ones who finish on their feet rather than staring up at the lights, a heavyweight defeat remains a humiliating experience, with either exhaustion involved, or flailing limbs and desperate clinches only compounding the sense of humiliation.
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Drying out: The discomfort of watching a boxer cut weight
Usually, the discomfort experienced by someone watching a boxer cut weight is exceeded only by the discomfort of the boxer having to actually cut the weight. It is, for the bystander, a unique, unnerving experience, both voyeuristic and to a degree perverted.
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Marvin Hagler, Terence Crawford, and the importance of knowing when to settle down
Any comparison between Terence Crawford and Marvin Hagler extends beyond just their ability to switch seamlessly from southpaw to orthodox. As well as that unique gift, Crawford shares with Hagler a hardiness and a spitefulness, not to mention a darkness, the kind found only in the eyes of boxers for whom fighting is second nature.
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Terence Crawford is forced to find a new way to win
So accustomed are we to seeing Terence Crawford figure out his problems without the help of others, it both comes as a surprise and inevitably leaves room for debate when Crawford has no option but to look elsewhere for assistance, certainty.
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Forget Imane Khelif and focus your energy on Jarrell Miller instead
To conclude a week in which a female Algerian boxer was publicly vilified for supposedly having naturally elevated levels of testosterone, boxing will, on Saturday night (Aug. 3), again indulge heavyweight Jarrell Miller, a man whose determined and longtime pursuit of “elevation” has been anything but natural.
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