1,055 stories on BoxingScene are published under the Thomas Gerbasi byline.
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By Thomas Gerbasi - Heavyweight contender Charles Martin may have been in California for the last seven years, but the St. Louis native still can’t escape that good ol' Midwest weather as he trains for his January 16 bout against Vyacheslav Glazkov in Big Bear. "I'm actually still in it because I’m in the mountains and it’s cold and snowing," he laughs, more relaxed than
Lung cancer was the opponent Howard Davis Jr. couldn’t beat, but that didn’t stop him from fighting it tooth and nail. The 1976 United States Olympic gold medalist and Most Outstanding Boxer eventually gave way to the disease. sadly passing away on Wednesday at the age of 59.
By Thomas Gerbasi - Breaking news - Omar Douglas Jr. is not fighting Floyd Mayweather. Not now. Not ever. First, the unbeaten Douglas is a 130-pounder. Second, Mayweather is retired. But that doesn't stop folks who don't know boxing or the business of it to often wonder when the Delaware native is going to get that big fight with the former pound-for-king.
By Thomas Gerbasi - Those are just the openers from a recent Google News search coming more than two weeks after Tyson Fury's upset of Wladimir Klitschko. In other professional sports, this is par for the course these days. In boxing, particularly heavyweight boxing, its given new life to a division ruled so dominantly by Klitschko that it became boring. Yes, Fury, the new WBA / WBO / IBO (and already former IBF) world heavyweight champion is off the wall with his often incendiary and misguided comments, but after defeating Klitschko on November 28, and with the buzz about that victory not subsiding in the least, he may very well be the divisions unlikely savior.
By Thomas Gerbasi - Barclays Center, Brooklyn - The Battle of Brooklyn didn’t last long. But when it was over, Daniel Jacobs had stopped Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin, retained his WBA middleweight title, and picked up local bragging rights. All in 85 seconds. “Speed kills,” Jacobs said. After a very brief feeling out process, a Jacobs right hand rocked Quillin in the first minute, and “The Miracle Man” emptied everything he had on his dazed opponent. Quillin tried to cover up and weather the storm, but Jacobs was relentless. Eventually, it looked like Quillin had cleared his head, but another right hand staggered him and nearly sent him down. Quillin stayed upright, but as referee Harvey Dock moved in, he looked in the former champion’s eyes and stopped the fight at the 1:25 mark. “I have the utmost respect for him, but I knew this was going to be my night,” Jacobs said. With the win, Jacobs, who was making the third defense of his title, moves to 31-1 with 27 KOs. Quillin falls to 32-1-1 with 23 KOs. Jacobs has won eleven fights in a row since suffering his first defeat, at the hands of Dmitry Pirog in 2010.
Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York - WBA featherweight champion Jesus Cuellar was forced to go the distance for the first time since May of 2014, but that didn’t stop him from picking up his 11th consecutive win in the co-main event, as he scored a clear-cut 12-round unanimous decision over Jonathan Oquendo.
Jack “Shady” Grady was a throwback in name and style, but faced with the more technically sound John Hernandez in the four-round welterweight opener at Barclays Center, it was a long night for the game Buffalo product, who brought the fight to his foe all night but remained winless after losing a four-round unanimous decision.
For a while against Noemi Bosques in May, Heather Hardy probably made her coach Devon Cormack smile. All those hours in the gym working on technique and a disciplined attack were coming together, and against the Brooklynite’s toughest opponent to date, no less. But then Bosques would land a flush shot and Hardy would lower her chin, bite down on her mouthpiece, stop boxing and start fighting. It’s the way of “The Heat.” “When you’re in a situation like that, with the adrenaline flowing, your natural self comes out,” she said, before telling a story of the days before she stepped into the ring for the first time.
The train was rolling and no one – especially not Dmitry Pirog – was going to stop Daniel Jacobs from winning his first world title on July 31, 2010. Less than a minute into the fifth round though, “The Golden Child” was stopped by Pirog in their WBO middleweight championship bout. It was Jacobs’s first pro loss, and then everything went haywire. The Brooklynite rebounded with two knockout wins, but cancer proved to be a tougher opponent to beat back. Jacobs did win that battle though, and after returning to the ring in October of 2012, boxing’s “Miracle Man” made a beeline for the 160-pound title, which he won by defeating Jarrod Fletcher in August of last year.
Yuri Foreman was never the typical boxer. So, of course, his retirement in May of 2013 wasn’t the usual one, as he left on the heels of a four-fight winning streak. And unlike most of his peers, when he walked away, you almost expected that this would be one boxing retirement that would stick. But the 35-year-old wasn’t through throwing curveballs, which meant that earlier this year, he announced that he was coming back to the ring, with his comeback fight taking place against Lenwood Dozier this Saturday at Barclays Center.