What do you think of Dan Rafael?

[Beercules]

That fat *** wouldn't fit on a poster

Do you mean you have Dan Raphael wallpaper?

[Motorcity Cobra]

That fat *** wouldn't fit on a poster

Do you mean you have Dan Raphael wallpaper?

[Æthelstan]

Dan Rafael has his flaws, but he's better than some others

Scott Gilfoid is the worst

[Motorcity Cobra]

Rafael is NOT a good writer. You insult the long history of excellent boxing writers by even calling Rafael a "writer." Rafael is an excellent transcriber of press releases, and he also excels at Tweets...but he has yet to "write" a boxing "story." Most of his posts are the most basic factual recountings of a few hundred words...no nuance, no characters, no context, no drama, no creativity.

Because of its natural melodrama and unique characters, boxing has attracted some of the greatest writers in American literature, including Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, James Baldwin, Gay Talese and George Plimpton.

Current boxing writers - meaning those who can not only report basic facts and accurately reflect the judges' scores, but also include flavor, emotion, drama, creativity, backstory and human character - include:
- Mark Kriegel (see his books on Mancini and Namath and his long profile of De La Hoya)
- Hugh McIlvanney
- Thomas Hauser (BEFORE he became an HBO shill)
- Ron Borges
- Thomas Jay
- Pete Hamill (see his writing on Cus D'Amato)
- Jay Kang (mainly writes basketball, but occasionally does boxing)
- Greg Bishop

Read any of these guys and you'll understand the difference between Dan Rafael and a writer.

Good post. What do you think of Jonathon Butler -Brin as a writer?

[OnePunch]

I think the people who make cracks about his weight are just picking the low hanging fruit. So what if hes fat? John Madden is fat. Col. Bob Sheridan is fat. Lots of people are fat. Doesnt have anything to do with how he does his job.

I do agree however that it should be beneath someone in his position to get in the childish spats he does. He should just ignore people instead of engaging in that nonsense.

[Gigantes]

anybody follow fat dan on twitter? if so, send this link to him, and tell him to read it lol

[khal-d]

Dan Rafael is an absolute joke and should barely have his own blog let alone be ESPN's lead boxing reporter.

Nothing insightful, no actual knowledge of what's happening INSIDE the ring, and just completely childish on Twitter.

The type of guy to go to an event and tweet all Sunday complaining about waiting for flights instead of giving any compelling views on what happened the night before.

I dare anyone here to post an insightful and investigative piece penned by Rafael, you won't be able to because he doesn't actually write anything informative.

Instead, Dan simply reports the news (which anyone can do) and copy pastas from press releases.

[MASTERBX]

As long as cardiac dan is ESPN's "boxing guy" that tells us that they have no respect for this sport.

[jmrf4435]

Wow!! Now I almost feel bad for the guy!!

[removed]

Rafael is decent for behind the scenes stuff, but he doesn't know **** about the actual sport. He just loves wars and brawls, and gets a massive erection whenever he hears Arturo Gatti's name.