After the After

As much as I found the experience of watching the Mayweather/Marquez fight on Saturday affecting, the only real drama was the post-fight interview. I’ve never understood why the interview in boxing is allowed to be much more confrontational than in any other sport - with notable curmudgeons Jim Gray and Larry Merchant being the preeminent practitioners – but it’s a generally accepted rule that things are allowed to get quite a bit saltier than just about anything else on television.

Still, I couldn’t help being a little sympathetic to Floyd Mayweather Jr. as he tried to accept his bow as the returning hero. I enjoyed the limited mayhem, but couldn’t help wondering what the reaction would have been if it had been Floyd who had pulled a Kanye on Mosley, instead of the way it went down. It’s one thing to agitate in the press-conference afterwards, it’s quite another to take a man’s hard earned shine after two years out of the spotlight.

I know Floyd is supposed to be the natural baddie, while Mosley is noble and righteous, but if the roles were reversed there would be such an overload of vitriol and message-board indignation sent Floyd’s way that the psychic rage would peel flesh from faces. No, I am not weeping for Floyd, it is what it is, but don’t anyone tell me that he is crazy when he talks about a double standard. Floyd has his faults, but he would not have done that to Mosley, and if he had you can be assured he would have taken his lashes.

Mosley has built up a reservoir of good will over the years by being a humble and decent man, but he and Bernard overstepped the moment no matter how much we may like them.

As for Kellerman’s performance, I’m a little hesitant to go after him too hard as I’m generally a fan. He seems to at least love the sport, something some of the other HBO boys don’t always make clear. However, as the instigator of the event he should have let the thing unfold to the natural conclusion. We are boxing fans, a little crazy is what we love about the sport.

I’ll say it gentle, but Max shrunk a bit, looking like a little boy who, late at night, wandered into the neighborhood his mother warned him about. If you know what I mean. That’s alright, I would have been nervous too, sandwiched between a hard crew of roughly twenty title belts between them. What I wished Kellerman would have realized, and Floyd rightly pointed out, is he talks too much and nobody really cares what he has to say. I know he worked all night on his intricate questions, but Floyd isn’t going to say what you want him to, so let the action unfold. Give the man his minute of commercials and self-love, he earned it.

It’s not Kellerman’s fault, particularly, I think the HBO guys often takes themselves a little too seriously. The fights the thing, and whether the gloves are still on or it’s the aftermath, nobody, ultimately, cares about the referees.

* Check out the latest piece I wrote for the Rumble about watching Floyd fight, I think it's good.

The Boys and the Band

I have some rather exciting news. Nomas is folding into another site with the sporting news called the rumble and it seems I am going to come along with them. I’m not entirely sure yet what the ramifications of this might be, but I think it means I’m probably going to be posting more frequent and slightly shorter pieces over there. It seems nomas will largely be a feeder site for the rumble. As for Boxiana we’re going to have to see. My hope is to do something of what Bethlehem Shoals has done over at Freedarko, where he keeps the longer, more challenging – and to my mind more interesting stuff – on Freedarko and the straighter stuff on the baseline.

Of course, there is only one Shoals, the high prince of sports blogging and a walking difference engine. I, on the other hand, am but flesh and not particularly toothsome flesh at that. I have tried to keep my promises at a minimum so as to focus the disappointment firmly within myself. As Leonard Cohen wrote in one of my favorite poems:

Out of the thousands

who are known,

or who want to be known

as poets,

maybe one or two

are genuine

and the rest are fakes,

hanging around the sacred

precincts

trying to look like the real thing.

Needless to say

I am one of the fakes,

and this is my story

The Rumble should be pretty fun. Large from nomas has put together a beautifully designed site and gotten quite a few talented writers to sign on. It’s a dual boxing/MMA site, which, to be perfectly honest, I’m not overly thrilled with. But, who knows, perhaps we can convert some of the fans of strenuous rubbing into followers of the science of bruising. (Joking, mostly.)

I haven’t been asked to temper my style, and I doubt I will really be able to even if asked. The first piece is already up today, a recap and meditation of Urango/Bailey and the romance of the body shot. There should be another one on Hatton up later today as well. I guess I’ll put a link up in the corner and also specifically point to particularly good pieces for the next few weeks at least. Still, it should be worth checking out daily as there will be a lot of news pieces and some fine writing. For Boxiana I hope to keep producing more edgy and overtly racial or otherwise longer pieces, but again, I'm not one for guarantees.

It should be exciting with a lot of new readers, whether my type of stuff is what they prefer; I guess we’ll see.

Rumble, young man. Rumble!

* * * *

Also wanted to add some quick thoughts on the debut of Mayweather/Marquez 24/7, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s great to have Floyd back on the program, the only truly interesting and engaging personality they have yet found. Roger and Floyd Sr, of course, are much welcomed as well.

My first thought on seeing the program was just how much Floyd’s upper body has grown. Having just rewatched Mayweather/Corrales the difference is striking. And, though I have not recently checked, it seemed to me he was notably larger than even the Hatton and De La Hoya fights. On one level this is obviously good, he will no longer be so clearly outsized against the real welters, Cotto/Mosley and the rest, when he eventually (hopefully) fights them, but I had been hoping that he might get back the more fluid combination punching style he displayed so beautifully in the lower weight classes. I thought perhaps his more cautious, pecking style owed more to dangers of larger opposition and an inherently cautious nature than any physical change.

But with this newly muscled body, impressive as it might be, I have doubts whether he is capable of throwing those multiple short and quick right hands that were so lovely to see. I don’t think it necessarily limits his effectiveness, but the grace and subtlety may have dissipated a little.

I know a lot of people were also skeptical of the slightly more mature and PG Floyd, thinking it a ploy to get back in the good graces of an irate public. I’m somewhat sympathetic to that viewpoint. It’s hard for a normal person to imagine just how much psychic toll it takes to be in the public eye, and even moreso when the larger part of that eye is squinting and narrowed with animus. It is a human impulse to try to correct that, it just take too much energy to be forever kicking against the pricks. Richard III might have said, “And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover. To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain.” But Floyd, though he has played the part exceptionally well, like most all of us sinners, sees himself as the hero of his own story and on some level must be trying to self-correct.

While that surely is a part, it is an ungenerous heart that leaves it at that. I reserve my true skepticism for politicians and the police. I think the larger piece is the natural progression of a man’s life. Floyd is 32 now, with a growing daughter, and very few are able to keep up the level of narcissism he so long maintained. I hope he keeps his sharper and more biting ring persona and racial edges, but outside the ring finds greater rewards. It’s an unhealthy heart that wishes demons on others.

As for Marquez, it was enjoyable to see the man in peacetime, but not particularly illuminating or otherwise engaging. It simply confirmed what I’ve long thought. Juan Manual Marquez intends to win this fight. He’s as earnest and serious a prizefighter as now exists, and he doesn’t particularly care if we don’t give him a chance, he’ll take a bone from a hungry dog and beat him over the head with it if that is what it takes. Marquez looked a bit more muscular, but what little work we saw him engaged in seemed sharp and focused. He’s a stone sniper, from a culture full of them, and he’s never going to stand down unless compelled to by force.

I had been a little fretful over the match up, not because I saw it as unworthy, but because I want the heat of a true superfight. I want something that will make people stand at attention, and this fight didn’t seem to be it. I think much of it stems from the overarching dislike of Mayweather, a perfemptory defense of giving him credit in the event of a win. He is the clear favorite, but I think he’s the clear favorite against them all.

It may not be the fight they all want to see, but it’s a fight I want to see, and the 24/7 reminded me of that. People always claim that boxing is dead, and I say that’s fine, as long as you don’t tell the modern greats not to show up in the ring I’m more than happy to let people claim as much.

They say this is not a superfight, and that’s fine too, because it is for me, and I can’t wait for the bell to ring.

Random Rules

I have a new piece up on nomas about Malignaggi/Diaz that you should check out. The fight was much more enjoyable than I expected and had the added bonus of the Malignaggi meltdown in the postfight and a memorable press conference afterwards.

In the piece I referenced recent interviews with both Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Bernard Hopkins, which absolutely must be read and listened to in full. I find Floyd’s interviews on Bossip particularly rewarding, as we get to hear him at a comfort level that he never gets reaches with the gatekeepers of white sports purity; Brian Kenny, Larry Merchant, and the rest.

It’s interesting that even when the athlete says something in this context that under more official circumstances would come off as petulant, paranoid, or racist, there seems in these interviews the natural patter of the pugilist at rest. It makes all the difference. Not that I find either Mayweather or especially Hopkins grating, but they are more charming when amongst friends, and I wonder whether it might take the edge off for those who consider Mayweather specifically the exemplar of a world gone wrong.

While I find Stephen A. Smith somewhat odious, he was often the one most able to get worthwhile material from his interview subjects, which is difficult given the restrictions placed on the athletes he normally worked with. Boxing, as I wrote in the piece for nomas, has many fewer restrictions, meaning the athlete needs much less rope to go much further. I hope the trend continues, for Floyd most of all I think there is a personal redemption in his less guarded moments that might allow him to retain his status as villain, but provide the depth to make it a lasting and meaningful role.

Notes from the Edge

Wrote a prediction piece on Diaz/Malignaggi over at nomas, please check it out.

I want to say a quick word on Jones/Lacy, which I haven’t been able to see yet other than the highlights. I’m a bit surprised that Jones has been getting even this limited amount of heat for the win, but not altogether dismissive of the matter. First, let me say that from the looks of it Jones performed quite admirably. He seems to have his speed back and some of the confidence that Tarver jarred loose with that fairytale left he landed.

That being said I find it hard to be too impressed given the opposition. I actually kind of like Jeff Lacy, who seems to me the sort of decent guy who was simply set up with expectations that were beyond his capacity, but the truth is he’s so long gone any proper judgments related to his performance are impossible to make. I was ringside for Taylor/Lacy last year, one of the few who cheered for him, but it was immediately clear he was a lost cause. One of my favorite things about going to a live fight is the slow build in class and speed as the card progresses, like watching a series of basketball games beginning with grade-schoolers and culminating in a playoff game. When Lacy fought it was shocking in the other way, a chiseled man who labored about the ring like a spent thoroughbred. He looked as though he was sparring underwater, using resistance training to increase his speed.



So it was unsurprising to me when even this faded Jones gave him a lesson. It was not Jones’ speed that faltered, rather his stamina and his legs. The hands are still there, it’s just the peripherals that have gone. Still, it did leave me with a bit of intrigue. Roy is a strange character, his caution first style robbed us of potentially seeing one of the most accomplished fighters in history, rather than merely one of the most impressive. While he often displayed such mastery that his fights ceased to be competition and became performance, he seemed to hold back in the ring, letting inferior opponents linger. It left you with the question of what he was really capable of.

So it’s interesting that in his late career Roy Jones seems desperate to give us his finest. I don’t think it’s lack of money, rather some personal axe he has left to grind. I suspect the Calzaghe fight might have been particularly important. Roy never liked taking punches as a young fighter. He was so averse to it that he would stink out the joint rather than close the show; and then when Tarver and Johnson abused him it seemed as though his hesitation had been proved correct; one doesn’t want to take a shot, particularly when there seems to be an inherent vulnerability.



But with the Calzaghe fight there seemed to have been some sort of paradigm shift within him. He got as good a hiding as one is likely to see and survived. It’s almost as if he realized that, contrary to his guiding philosophy, getting whipped isn’t so bad.

It’s a matter of boxing lore that Muhammed Ali, a defensive mastermind, discovered that he could take a shot in his first fight with Frazier, and that liberated him to go beyond pain and into history. I wonder if something similar happened to Roy. he doesn’t have the tools anymore to make an extended run, but he seems to have the outsized sense of self-belief to try to push himself. He might have been better served losing somewhere along the way, (the Montell Griffin fight doesn’t count.) If it would have taken the edge off and allowed him to really let loose. Sometimes that 0 on the record can be more crippling than invigorating. Maybe if Floyd had slipped up things would be different where he is concerned as well.

All that being said, I hope Roy continues on his current path, fighting fringe guys and exhibiting the athletic gifts he alone possesses. While his heart might be in the right place, I don’t want to see him take another beating. It's the same way I feel about Holyfield. Let them keep going, there’s nothing wrong with acting like a still relevant fighter; as long as you don’t use it as your address.


So that’s why, despite the greatness of this interview between Hopkins and Jones Jr., I hope the long awaited rematch remains a fantasy. A win by Hopkins wouldn’t mean anything, and one by Jones would confuse matters too much. I'll be rooting for Jones to get his mini-redemption, not that he even really needs it, but the relevant pages have already been written for Jones, and that's the way it should stay.

The True Vine

*** Update: Please check out the new piece I just did for nomas on Mayweather/Marquez.****

I might be one of the few, but when I heard that negotiations between cruiserweight champion Tomasz Adamek and geriatric wonder Bernard Hopkins had been restarted it sent my mind racing. Behind only Pacquiao/Mayweather it’s the fight I most want to see. Tomasz Adamek is a former light heavyweight champ and in the last couple of years has carved out a place for himself as a can’t miss action fighter and a top figure in the cruiserweight division’s, admittedly short and neglected, history. It would be a big fight for Adamek; if he should win he would really stamp his name as a fine champion, and move beyond a mostly Polish attraction to an HBO headlining fighter.

But, of course, the main focus of my excitement is Bernard Hopkins and his quest for the grail. Part of me wants him to quit, certain as the grave that if he keeps pushing his end will be no more glorious than the others whose time came much earlier. My god, though, what if he does it? What if he managed to, at the age of 46 move up thirty pounds from his last bout, itself a certified miracle, and win another legitimate title from a borderline p4p champion? He is already, to my mind, the greatest “old fighter,” of all time, but this would really bring it home.

I know some think Hopkins should fight the winner of Dawson/Johnson, but to me there’s something special about the audacity of the task in an Adamek fight. It’s also something tangible and bold. It would go right in the opening line of Hopkin’s CV, something like…

“Bernard “The Executioner,” Hopkins was the longest reigning middleweight champion in boxing history and won the light heavyweight and Cruiserweight championships after the age of forty.”



I’m no historian, but I think it would actually lift him above his contemporary Roy Jones Jr. as the greatest fighter of the post Whittaker era. (Holyfield, and Pacquiao or Mayweather, might have some dispute depending on the future)

A lot of people dislike Hopkins because of his cautious style and confrontational black identity, but to me he is a monument to discipline and soul. There is such a righteous fire inside him that it sometimes burns through the screen. He’s an old man, but he’s made of shoe leather and sinew, and the miasma of creation.

The thing that I’ve always loved about him is that he is not particularly physically gifted in any area. He has decent power, good handspeed, prodigious strength for a natural middleweight; but nothing compared to the genetic freaks who share his lofty ranks. What he has is a hardness and completeness of spirit that few can match. He is always on balance, always planning, always has his hands properly positioned and his chin tucked tight as though gently holding an invisible egg. He would have made a fine general in the era of cavalry, or a formidable knight in the age or heroes.

As a man constantly at odds with himself I admire his stalwart discipline. He has physically declined, but the fundamentals remain, the tricks and the insights and wisdom of the ages. I love to watch his feet in the ring, the rhythm gained through decades of shadowboxing and sparring. But even moreso one feels he is the rightful heir to generations of African-American prizefighters who passed through the gymnasiums of Philadelphia and the East coast. A true disciple of the sweet science, he may not have been born from a family of fighters, but it is in his blood.

Mike Seeger died this week, a folk singer and preservationist of roots music, he called his life’s study the “true vine.” It was a sound that came from the mountains, deep and lasting and American. That’s what Bernard Hopkins is; he is the true vine.


On some level the fight with Adamek is incidental to Hopkins’ career, he has already been etched into the book of names. For most I would say let it go, the glory of the Pavlik fight is good enough, but I want to see the old master at work again, want to see what tricks and old-tyme music he can play. He isn’t exciting or athletic or even particularly relevant to the sport anymore; but he is something more. He is an ambassador for an age and a philosophy that is largely gone. He did it his way, and I hope he does it one more time.

*I’m going to try to make a list of Hopkin’s ten best moments this week as a way of framing what I think a fight with Adamek might mean.

A Thorn of Thorns

Well Saturday’s fights were strangely suited to the month that preceded them; a roiling heartache. Grant me forgiveness for my expectations both of a Campbell victory and an event worth watching.

I spoke of Campbell with high praise, as a sort of mini-Hopkins. I suppose one must learn prudence or be gifted with the sort of perception of the self that even mirrors can't fracture. I, however, doubt I will ever learn and accept my ten lashes with appropriate humility.

I’ve never hid that I have a weak point for the brash and boastful. Campbell speaks my language, defiance mixed with the righteous anger of the oppressed. The sort of smoldering rage given to someone who was born for hard luck and keeps on coming. I still see it in him, just should have tempered the expectation of greatness of spirit with that of the flesh. There’s a reason that Bernard Hopkins is wholly unique in the history of a century old sport. An aberration so outside the margins should merit skepticism over a contemporary traveler, not brook easy comparisons.



Which is not to say that I agree with the official decision. That was as clear a no contest as you’re likely to see, and I’ve been surprised to read so many impassioned calls to the contrary. I suppose it is because judge’s choices are based on personal preference and the ring is the last grimy cave of unadulterated masculinity, but codes of conduct and morality seem to hold sway in boxing as a sort of higher law in ways that are reflected no where else in society.

Which is fine for a fan and specifically a writer, otherwise we should all just cede to the AP; but strange and magical as they are the rules of boxing must be officially respected. Nate Campbell and Timothy Bradley clashed heads in the middle of the third round after which point a cut was opened, along with a further vision problem, prompting the end of the fight before the completion of the fourth round. Following the unified rules of boxing this is a no contest, and really that ends the discussion.

Now the argument has been made that Nate Campbell was dogging it, that if he had been winning at the point of the clash he never would have consented to the stoppage of the fight. Frankly, I agree with this opinion - I also agree with my mother that I am a very handsome boy - neither of which makes either Timothy Bradley the winner of a TKO 3 or got me a date to the prom.

Nearly the exact same circumstances surrounded the second James Toney- Hasim Rahman fight. Following a butt that appeared much less severe than that in the Campbell-Bradley fight, Rahman claimed he couldn’t see and the fight was stopped. Initially ruled a TKO for Toney the California commission eventually changed the result to a no contest. I’m as delusional a fan of James Toney as still exists, but even I knew as the result was being read that it was an improper call. I screamed that James never would have quit if he’d been in the opposite corner, but ultimately it makes no difference.

The rules are there for a reason, to protect fighters from injury. It looks likely that Campbell did indeed suffer trauma beyond that of the cut, some type of bleeding within the eye, but even if he did not it’s of no importance. Those rules are there to protect fighters from going on to sustain injury, to hold them back from the risk of taking a last throw with the dirty diceman. If there are a hundred injustices to save one fighter from the loss of an eye or a brain bleed it is a small price to pay.

But all this is simple bookkeeping. I suspect the result will be overturned, but even if it isn’t the world will move on; the level of injustice will fall somewhere between the death of Socrates and the ticket I recently received for failure to come to a complete stop (a travesty quite personally poignant, if ultimately surmountable.)

Nevertheless an aborted event did take place and it does have meaning. Bradley announced himself as more than a passing beltholder. He was real and serious and earnest in a way I wasn’t expecting. I always thought him below even this later version of Ricky Hatton, but now I’m not so certain. I was struck by the genuineness of feeling he expressed in the ring, the deep personal I’m always looking for. It was more noteworthy than the fast hands and muscular but natural movement. I don’t see much grace or the underlying echo of the profoundly gifted, but he’s a soul rubbing against the best of himself, and it’s going to take a man and a half to sit him down at the children’s table again.


As for Campbell I’m not entirely sure what to think. I don’t believe, as most do, that he was out of the fight entirely. He lost the first two rounds clearly, but he was still searching, still engaged in the act of finding a way to victory. The thing is he just didn’t seem to have the tools even if the mind was still engaged. He looked poor in his last fight as well, but I was hoping it was a product of weight lethargy and an awkward opponent. Here is seemed a touch more than that. I’m not necessarily saying age was the key factor, though every man must fall; I think it’s more likely another case of someone who wasn’t quite what I wanted them to be. It’s a romantic’s folly, but it’s the human problem to hope for the special.

And I think that’s really why the vitriol seems to fall so heavy on Campbell’s shoulders. For the ones who believed in him he wasn’t the burning fire of the mountain we wanted him to be; and for those who were never impressed proof can’t be tarnished by technicalities.

Me? I’m just hoping for better days.

The Human Problem

Good little fight between Timothy Bradley and Nate Campbell on Showtime this Saturday. I like both guys and don't have any clear conception about the outcome.

I think Nate Campbell has a little higher ceiling; he's a born menace. At the same time he's pretty old and didn't look all that sharp against Ali Funeka, a fight where he didn't make weight. Though he won, his lightweight belt was stripped and he was forced to move up to junior welter.

Campbell is old, but bone tough.
Campbell has a real inner confidence, bordering on insolence. It's the type of chip on your shoulder that can feed you once old age starts to eat away at the good stuff. He loves to talk and I hope he eventually gets into broadcasting. I like to think of him as a miniature, less talented, Bernard Hopkins. And if you don't know, that's high praise indeed.

Timothy Bradley is slightly less interesting. He seems a nice man, and throws punches with conviction, but to me there doesn't seem much pathos or deep hurt in the way he fights. He's a little muscle-bound and stiff, like he has been taught to fight. He doesn't have the same underlying sense of menace and the dark passenger that seems to gnaw at Nate Campbell and what I call the "natural fighters."


What Bradley does have is a set of moral principles; a kind of code of conduct that allows him to go to the edge and not over. In his last fight against Kendall Holt he took a huge shot in the first round, the kind that if it doesn't put you down for ten will change your way of thinking at the very least. But Bradley pulled it together and outworked Holt to unify the belts. He didn't do anything impressive, except exert everything he had. One felt that Holt might have had the greater tools, but we all know that's just palaver and high talk. What matters is the making it happen. Every single fight Bradley is in great shape. Every single fight he brings it.

Bradley brings it every time.

So what's my prognosis? A pretty good scrap. Part of me thinks that Bradley is just too consistent, but I can't past get the feeling that Campbell has the cold rage. The type that tears mountains and roads and ripped the cosmos to pieces. I think the path to victory is lined with bad intentions. Campbell by decision.

* * *


I hate to do this after lauding him, but if you haven't checked it out this is Nate Campbell's historically boneheaded moment. He drops his hands in a fight he was winning and gets an unfortunate result. I don't like it, but it's a classic.