2024-04-02 15:08
What could be said with some confidence Saturday morning, and perhaps no less confidently today, is that super welterweight Tim Tszyu has arrived. We know this not because Tszyu was to parti… Read More
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Hannibal Boxing Blog
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Boxing blog dedicated to boxing’s enduring aspects. Hannibal Boxing publishes articles that celebrate the history, artistry, and culture of the sweet science. Enjoy.
2023-12-27 19:37
There is a right way for titles to change hands, a right way to consolidate them: in a manner expeditious as it is violent, captivating as it is definitive. This is the only way Naoya Inoue… Read More
2023-10-03 18:24
There was a time when the opponent hardly mattered, when he might charge admission to watch him box his shadow, pummel a heavy bag, harrow a skipping rope. But the opponents mattered to him… Read More
2023-07-30 18:30
Plenty laughed in November, malicious little chortles at a rare moment of weakness from a fighter who seemed without any. Terence Crawford heard them. They questioned his nerve, his heart, a… Read More
2023-07-25 22:55
It was a harbinger of his undoing, that talk of toughness, that little kindness from the commentary team offered barely fifteen minutes into the action. And true too. But the timing of that… Read More
2023-06-13 14:38
“Do I still got it?”
What was your answer? When Teofimo Lopez, wearing a wry smile and as many belts as his junior-welterweight frame could support, asked the soldout crowd in Th… Read More
2023-06-02 00:34
FOREWORD
Surely one of only a few prizefighters to inspire a hopscotch rhyme, Tyrone “The Butterfly” Everett seemed on the verge of stardom when he stepped into the Spectrum on N… Read More
2023-05-09 17:48
His nose, that bulbous bullseye stuffed with gauze, secured by tape, bled determinedly into his mouth; a handkerchief wrinkled and spattered returned rhythmically to dab the claret trickle… Read More
2023-05-01 15:33
Imagine fight night in LA twenty years ago. Girls would wear their tightest dresses and their highest heels. We’d pull up to the house that was hosting the Oscar De La Hoya fight in hi… Read More
2023-04-25 16:20
Like so many of his devotees, were they graced with a private moment in his presence, Ryan Garcia got on his knee and let it come. There he stayed until it was over, and the man across from… Read More
2023-04-11 17:03
I have been here before, intentionally, if not by design. It is a strange place, particularly for one who has lived for so long looking down, not haughtily, not arrogantly, but by necessity… Read More
2023-03-27 16:32
How many grudge matches fulfill their promise? What satisfaction a man might take from punishing another is mitigated by his limitations, by the strengths of his opponent, by the third man i… Read More
2023-03-14 17:48
They left the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia, changed men, versions of themselves that, if not quite recognizable before the opening bell, were undeniable in the aftermath. Junior mid… Read More
2023-03-14 00:49
The world is always ready to be amazed, but the self, that lynx-eyed monitor, sees all the subterfuges, all the cut corners, and is not deceived.
—John Banville, The Infinities
***
It… Read More
2022-12-07 19:51
“The fights had a discipline to them and a palpable life behind them, a coherence that was correct and apparent.”—Richard Ford, The Ultimate Good Luck
***
“It was a n… Read More
2022-11-21 03:56
The following is an excerpt from Roadhouse Blues: Morrison, the Doors and the Death Days of the Sixties by Bob Batchelor, now available from Hamilcar Publications.
***
“My Doors Memoir… Read More
2022-10-18 15:52
When Robert Helenius looked across the black canvas in Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, he saw a familiar face: a former sparring partner, a friend, and an opponent for the next (laughabl… Read More
2022-09-21 17:18
There will not be a fourth fight. Indeed there was barely a third. Saul Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin renewed frustrations at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Saturday, where Alvarez won a u… Read More
2022-08-23 16:14
He stands at the mouth of the tunnel, dressed in stark black (or deep purple?), an imposing figure. His long shadow falls in an arrangement of that resonant surname stretched lengthwise alon… Read More
2022-07-11 01:14
This excerpt comes from Carlos Acevedo’s first book, Sporting Blood: Tales from the Dark Side of Boxing, an expanded edition of which will be available from Hamilcar Publications Septe… Read More
2022-06-28 17:03
He didn’t protest; what little resistance he managed through the previous half-hour—even that was beyond him now. For seven rounds his body betrayed him, whipped mercilessly alon… Read More
2022-06-20 17:38
Some ten minutes—was it even that long?—after the opening bell of the light heavyweight unification fight between Artur Beterbiev and Joe Smith Jr., there was a sign that one of… Read More
2022-05-16 18:57
A proliferation of titles plagues boxing. The ticks and leeches who sanction championship belts, who create newer ones in the hope of tapping fresh veins—we should be rid of them. Let… Read More
2022-05-10 16:15
1.
Maybe they thought him too green, too inexperienced, susceptible to the pressure of the moment and its greater expectations. Maybe they looked at his record, the paltry eleven knockouts i… Read More
2022-05-02 16:59
ESPN ran an odd graphic during its broadcast of the fight between Shakur Stevenson and Oscar Valdez from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas Saturday. Along with the standard tale of the… Read More
2022-04-18 15:53
Something is reassuring about the end of the improbable. Yordenis Ugas was and is an incredible story. That story culminated last August when Ugas (replacing the injured Errol Spence) made a… Read More
2022-04-13 17:22
The champion on the comeback trail knows this much: he was a champion. His return to glory culminates in the familiar; it confirms expectations and estimations alike. But what of the fighter… Read More
2022-03-08 17:22
Don’t be fooled. The orange expanse, black piping, white spots that Mullerian mimicry isn’t quite deception, but one is not the other. They are both toxic; they patrol similar te… Read More
2022-01-18 16:29
“I’m not happy, don’t you believe that shit. I’ll fight every day,” he says with a punctuating chuckle. He’s joking, at least partially so. Nate Campbell… Read More
2021-11-22 21:27
There are the lights to contend with, their heat and burst, their merciless illumination. The pressure of the moment, too, pregnant with disaster, ready to rewrite a past, unmake a future. A… Read More
2021-11-09 17:59
What is a winning strategy in boxing? One that maximizes a fighter’s chances of victory; a calculation incorporating strengths, weaknesses, tendencies, proclivities, even consideration… Read More
2021-10-11 15:56
What did Mark Breland think? The towel that saved Deontay Wilder from Tyson Fury in their rematch. Breland threw it; it cost him his job. Would he have thrown it in the eighth round Saturday… Read More
2021-09-28 14:52
“No punches yet—use your feet, change direction. Hands up, but no punches yet.”
Can you see the trainer, scrutinizing from beyond the ropes the boxer moving about the ring?… Read More
2021-09-16 15:05
The following is an excerpt from pages 74-76 of Shot at a Brothel: The Spectacular Demise of Oscar “Ringo” Bonavena, by Patrick Connor (Hamilcar Publications, August 2021)
***
Bo… Read More
2021-09-07 13:59
Were Tolstoy following boxing today, he might observe that all unhappy boxers are alike, but that each happy boxer is happy in his own manner. What awaits the men who find but one route beyo… Read More
2021-08-26 15:56
Perhaps politics is all that remains for the Senator. A different public service, one less exacting, less dangerous. The crowds, they will always be there—ever devoted, ever grateful… Read More
2021-07-26 19:03
“Only now is the child finally divested of all that he had been.”—Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
William Quintana’s story begins before there is a William Quintana… Read More
2021-06-30 14:11
Gervonta Davis doesn’t need you to lie for him. If you tweet about the Baltimore fighter like you are paid by the compliment, you’re probably lying. If you suggest everyone shoul… Read More
2021-05-25 18:10
He doesn’t need any of them. “The Tartan Tornado” picked up every meaningful junior welterweight title, and so he no longer has use for them. They bring financial value, of… Read More
2021-05-11 15:47
The eyes fix first on the man in the foreground, Mexican super-middleweight, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Proportion explains that, yes, but also the pose. An iconic pose meant to inti… Read More
2021-04-20 14:47
“My third pro fight was on the Riddick Bowe–Andrew Golota undercard at Madison Square Garden. And when I came out and saw all the lights, I thought, ‘This is where you wann… Read More
2021-04-06 15:41
The following is an excerpt from Todd D. Snyder’s critically-acclaimed book, Bundini: Don’t Believe The Hype. The following passage is from chapter 11, “The Fighting Cowboy… Read More
2021-03-16 19:23
1 Great fighters are rare, and victories over them rarer still. That has always been true; it is more so now as few fighters aspire to greatness with more than bandwidth. And how misguided a… Read More
2021-02-23 17:09
The bell was supposed to signal the end of the round. But there would be no more rounds. Instead, its plangent couplet barged into the silence that bore witness to Miguel Berchelt’s co… Read More
2021-02-09 15:05
Carlos Acevedo is the author of the critically-acclaimed Sporting Blood: Tales From The Dark Side of Boxing. Read more of Acevedo’s journalism work here.
***
In Raging Bull, Jake LaMot… Read More
2021-01-22 18:40
The following is an excerpt from Don Stradley’s book, A Fistful of Murder: The Fights and Crimes of Carlos Monzon.
***
Bennie Briscoe was such a badass that Monzon deliberately changed… Read More
2021-01-05 15:11
On the last day of last year, super-flyweight Kazuto Ioka delivered a near-perfect defense of his title, dismantling Kosei Tanaka over eight excellent rounds at the Ota-City General Gymnasiu… Read More
2020-12-30 16:01
Finally, after all the hard years toiling in hothouse gyms and all the years crisscrossing the country as an itinerant journeyman—smoke-filled halls, catcalls and hisses when facing th… Read More
2020-12-22 16:02
“You have to be cruel to be kind.”—Martin Amis, Time’s Arrow
The celebration tempered once Saul “Canelo” Alvarez was announced the winner. As the ring cl… Read More
2020-12-15 18:04
XXV
They left the arena in silence, weaving determinedly through the shifting obstructions. They have their rhythms, conversations, that contrapuntalism has its tides. Their tide had gone o… Read More
2020-12-08 16:25
In boxing, change is precipitated by problems. A comebacking fighter changes trainers because a man who normalizes deadly risks cannot permit self-doubt. This new trainer promises to add a w… Read More
2020-12-04 14:23
He did not have to do this. In his first fight in over a year, first fight since being hurled from his speeding Ferrari, first fight in a pandemic year, Errol Spence did not have to fight on… Read More
2020-11-25 16:21
“El Cubano Mexicano.” It took a few years, but that’s what Mexican press came to call him. Before that, he was simply, “El Cubano.” José Nápoles… Read More
2020-11-17 20:25
SHEFFIELD, England—Unified junior welterweight champion Terence “Bud” Crawford returned to the UK Saturday night and once again left with a title. His victim, IBF welterwei… Read More
2020-11-13 15:02
There were two explosions when Gervonta “Tank” Davis mollywhopped Leo Santa Cruz on Halloween night at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. First, there was the booming sound of… Read More
2020-11-03 18:37
“It’s a lot to deal with.”
Much praise was heaped on unified bantamweight champion, Naoya Inoue, during his seven-round razing of challenger, Jason Moloney, at the MGM Gran… Read More
2020-10-26 13:58
The 1990s had to represent a period of ring transformation for Hector Camacho. After receiving considerable backlash for excessive clinching in his win over Ray Mancini, Hector appeared revi… Read More
2020-10-20 16:25
He calls his ascension “The Takeover,” a title that brings to mind fellow Brooklynite, Jay-Z, whose own “Takeover” also claimed an industry. Repeated ad nauseum the t… Read More
2020-10-16 13:51
What was a lie in the father becomes a conviction in the son.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist
We’ll find out if he’s right Saturday; we’ll find out if he can li… Read More
2020-10-14 16:49
Now trained by Robert Lee and Billy Giles, who lived at 140th street off Lennox Avenue, the best antidote to Hector Camacho’s restlessness was to keep him busy. They relied on Harold… Read More
2020-10-06 15:12
“THIS IS BOXING” in neon lights pulsed behind the ring in the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, a backdrop to the impending attrition. That arrangement was reminiscent of a zoo exhibit, wh… Read More
2020-09-30 14:41
The following article by Christian Giudice is a companion piece to his book, Macho Time: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of Hector Camacho.
***
Back in the late 1970s, the Cosmo Theatre o… Read More
2020-09-22 13:19
“It is my duty to take you to a rehabilitation center,” Rosendo Alvarez told him last week in a video posted to Alvarez’s Facebook page. The contrast in their appearances w… Read More
2020-09-14 16:39
Like the raw and lawless frontier territories of Oklahoma or the Far West in the nineteenth century, boxing has often functioned as an open city, of sorts, for those with checkered pasts loo… Read More
2020-09-01 14:03
“Phil Mushnick wrote a column when I was going to cover the Hagler versus Hearns fight. I was only five years into my job with ESPN and he said, ‘Your career feels to me like Mar… Read More
2020-08-19 15:18
Somehow, they found themselves connected yet again. Years after the Thrilla in Manila, Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali mounted quixotic, perhaps dangerous, comebacks eight days apart, and they… Read More
2020-08-12 14:38
“THIS DOOR HAS LED MANY TO PAIN AND FAME” stenciled in yellow and blue block letters on a red door. A greeting, a warning, a bit of promotion. If you wanted pain, wanted the fame… Read More
2020-08-04 13:07
“You’re going to see fireworks,” said “Dynamite” Daniel Dubois, ahead of his fight with “Juggernaut” Joe Joyce on October 24.
Dubois added, “Y… Read More
2020-07-28 15:56
This is the second installment in Carlos Acevedo’s Rat Bastards series, which takes a look at the fight game’s greatest miscreants.
***
Before he became just another chalk outlin… Read More
2020-07-22 17:10
“That is what comes of knowing the worst—one is left alone with the worst and it’s like peace.”
—Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
***
February 1981. Edith… Read More
2020-07-10 15:42
This is the first installment in Carlos Acevedo’s Rat Bastards series, which takes a look at the fight game’s greatest miscreants.
***
“Hell, winning was the big thing. I n… Read More
2020-07-08 15:23
October 2, 1980
He is having trouble sleeping. The long, long nights bleed away. From time to time this former chatterbox slurs his words. Occasionally, one of his fingers twitches uncontrol… Read More
2020-06-30 17:03
When the bad Moon in your heart sings
And your wind-up gears start grinding
Your teeth feel you smiling
The better, happier you
A better, happier you
—Giant, Matthew Good Band
He was… Read More
2020-06-24 13:47
While boxing has experienced a three-month stagnation, many have embraced the lockdown as a time to catch up on reading. Steve Bunce is still enthusiastic about boxing’s literary futur… Read More
2020-06-17 13:56
His story is set now; it has been for years. Vernon Forrest was a champion and humanitarian. That is how we remember him, such that it almost feels mundane to distinguish him as such. And is… Read More
2020-06-09 13:11
The following is an excerpt, from pages 17–19 of Part II, “Birth Of A Nightmare,” from Berserk: The Shocking Life and Death of Edwin Valero, by Don Stradley. Copyright &cop&hell…Read More
2020-06-03 14:37
“There she was, that little cutie. All that terrible blood. The blood just ran off. She looked pretty. I loved her so long—I only had love for her. I always loved her, but I lost… Read More
2020-05-29 14:10
The following article by Jimmy Tobin is a companion piece to his book, Killed In Brazil?: The Mysterious Death Of Arturo “Thunder” Gatti.
***Everything changes on Saturday night… Read More
2020-05-26 02:33
The following is an excerpt, from pages 148- 152 of chapter 6, “The Big Three,” from Off The Ropes: The Ron Lyle Story, by Candace Toft. Copyright © 2010 Candace Toft.
***
T… Read More
2020-05-15 12:26
For always the dreams they are there still.
— Horacio Castellanos Moya, Senselessness
Play his life out ten times, maybe he’s a musician. If Autryana, then just a baby, didn&rsq&hell…Read More
2020-05-11 13:50
By March 1980, not even Muhammad Ali could escape the wrath of “The Hawk.” Aaron Pryor, then an undefeated lightweight contender who inspired the sporting equivalent of Avoidant… Read More
2020-05-06 14:15
Chechen-born Artur Beterbiev is an anomaly in modern boxing. He boasts an amateur record of 295-5, winning European and world honors along the way, and twice participated in the Olympics. En… Read More
2020-05-01 16:29
One of the most popular features of the Hannibal Boxing Newsletter, beyond the Hit Parade column written by Carlos Acevedo (author of Sporting Blood), is Acevedo’s monthly roundup of s… Read More
2020-04-28 12:49
The following article by Paul Zanon is a companion piece to his book, The Ghost of Johnny Tapia.
***
“The queues on the day were crazy. It was mobbed. There were people showing up tryi… Read More
2020-04-24 16:34
And after a while I wasn’t twenty-five, then not even thirty-five, and nothing was quite as good.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald
With his high-voltage style, his wrecking ball left hook… Read More
2020-04-23 11:30
This quiz about Drew “Bundini” Brown, Muhammad Ali’s legendary assistant trainer and hype man, was created by Todd D. Snyder author of BUNDINI: Don’t Believe The Hype… Read More
2020-04-17 14:59
“I was at my in-laws’ house, had just finished off pie and chips, and I got a phone call from my old trainer, Ronnie Rush. He said, ‘There’s a big fight for you.&rsqu&hell…Read More
2020-04-07 17:39
The following is an excerpt, from pages 209-211 of chapter 7, “LOOKING ON DARKNESS,” from the 1st US edition of Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing by Donald McRae. Copyright ©… Read More
2020-03-27 17:02
“I picked up chess through the process of elimination, saying I can’t move here or there. That made me understand the legitimate moves, and then once you learn the moves, you sta… Read More
2020-03-12 16:40
This is the seventh installment in Carlos Acevedo’s Shoot The Moon series covering the career of Larry Holmes.
***
July 7, 1980
For the good old American life: For the money, for… Read More
2020-03-10 13:11
The following is the foreword for The Ghost of Johnny Tapia, by Paul Zanon. The foreword is written by Sammy Hagar, one of Jonny’s friends and once had the honor of working Johnny… Read More
2020-03-06 17:45
“Workin’, drivin’ trucks.”
That’s how one of the greatest punchers of the past twenty-five years provides for his family now. And he couldn’t be happier… Read More
2020-03-03 13:32
“Nobody thought I’d become world champion. In fact, nobody thought I’d beat Crawford Ashley, Ole Klemetsen or many of the other guys I beat. In a fight, I was never afraid… Read More
2020-02-25 17:48
It was hard to see anyone lasting twenty-four rounds with Deontay Wilder. Disparage his technique, those comical spasms of aggression carried on the ungainly stilts of a newborn giraffe; moc… Read More
2020-02-20 17:56
After more than a year of infomercials, mismatches, network cloak-and-dagger, promotional shell games, and the kind of 24-7 hype that makes “Hell is other people” (Sartre) a cybe… Read More
2020-02-14 16:34
“Winning the world title? It never really sets in at the moment you achieve something like that, but I want to put it into perspective. I remember saying to people, ‘When I have… Read More
2020-01-29 18:27
Boxing’s end-of-year award season came and went without Jean Pascal receiving his due. No surprise there. Pascal isn’t one of the world’s best fighters, nor did he beat one… Read More
2020-01-23 15:27
“Evander Holyfield once said, ‘You make your reputation in the amateurs. Period.’ There I was, this A-list elite amateur boxer, everybody looking at me with all these expec… Read More
2020-01-20 15:00
The following is an excerpt, from pages 83-85 of chapter 7, “This Isle of Joy,” from Jacobs Beach: The Mob, The Garden & The Golden Age of Boxing, by Kevin Mitchell. Copyrigh… Read More
2020-01-15 18:44
It was not revenge—not exactly—that motivated Jose Stable during his long march toward Emile Griffith and a shot at the welterweight championship of the world. Stable had been fr… Read More
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