By Ken Hissner: From John L. Sullivan to current champions WBC champion Tyson “The Gypsy … read more
By Ken Hissner: Jack “Galveston Giant” Johnson, Jack “Manassa Mauler” Dempsey, Joe “The Brown Bomber” … read more
By Ken Hissner: When this writer sees or reads about fighters in the history of … read more
By Ken Hissner: Counting the heavyweight champions from www.boxrec.com they show 86 champions holding titles … read more
By Gav Duthie: A couple of quite significant events happened on 13 February in boxing through the years. Here are my picks of the day.
100 years ago
13 February 1913
Fireman Jim Flynn KO 1 Jack Dempsey
100 hundred years ago to the day future heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey 54-6-9 (44) was knocked out for the first and last time of his career. He was stopped in the opening round by contender Jim Flynn.
By Daniel Hughes: The heavyweight championship of the world, the richest prize in sport as often quite rightly spoken of back in the day, bygone days of boxing making both front and back page news transatlantic wide. The heavyweight champion, like a president, known worldwide the vastly underrated Jack Johnson who on the aptly named boxing day 1908 created history for many reasons, the template of knowing his worth once he reached the boxing summit.
He had ability, avoided by fear and politics, but when he became champion he also became a fighter that developed his marketability the first of many that would follow. Many despised him for no other reason for the color of his skin, no one could ignore his skill set, he made money, he dressed well and lived life to the full, you couldn’t ignore him and at the time the world he lived in he gave hope to many.
Jack Johnson by 1915 had of course lost his title to Jess Willard a changing of the guard a revered champion gone and replaced by a fighter who let’s just say fitted a lot of agendas of the time a whole lot better.
By Yannis Mihanos: There used to be a time where to make a boxing match you needed only a strong hand shake and the fight was on. Since then a lot of things have changed. Fighters have now their own protectors: promoters who do this work for them.
Now boxing is no more two persons involved. The system has changed. Of course in the ring you still get to see two men fighting but outside of it there are specialized training teams, sponsors, TV channels , promoters and many high profile people.
By Dan Ambrose: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is working hard to try and create interest in the November 22nd fight between WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) and the little known Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) for their fight in Macao, China.
One of the ways that Arum has been trying to get boxing fans interested is by stressing that it’s a competitive fight where we could see an upset with Algieri beating the slugger Pacquiao.
Earlier today in their press conference in Macao, China, Arum compared the Pacquiao vs. Algieri fight to the two heavyweight championship bouts that took place in 1926 and 1927 between National Boxing Association World heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney. Dempsey was the slugger while Tunney was the boxer.
By Gav Duthie: If as expected we miss out on the biggest fight of the current era between Floyd Mayweather Jr 46-0 (26) and Manny Pacquiao 56-5-2 (38) a part of my love of boxing will die.
Since the conception of the sport there have been so many great fight nights but there is always one fight in a generation that defines the era. I decided to have a look at the biggest bouts by decade in over 100 years of boxing history to convey what we are missing out on if Mayweather and Pacquiao never meet.
Pound for Pound
The concept of pound for pound was created to compare boxers through the weight divisions. It isn’t very often two of the best p4p fighters actually occupy the same division. When it happens and they do fight it can define a generation. These aren’t always the best spectacles but they still live long in the memory.
By Jay McIntyre: Happy Holidays! Here’s an article on boxing on Boxing Day! I hope that it holds you over until the next worthwhile boxing match!
What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? The punchline to this rhetorical question is, of course, an unconscious Luis Angel Firpo. During The Golden Age of Boxing, nobody was more popular than the king of the heavyweights, “The Manassa Mauler” himself, Jack Dempsey. Surging through the heavyweight division during a time when there was one world title per weight class and a multitude of hungry, dangerous contenders, Dempsey was capable of delivering clinical beatings with freakish regularity. On July 4th, 1919, he seized the heavyweight crown from “Giant” Jess Willard (Willard was knocked out in three rounds) and spent the next four years pummeling anyone brave, or foolish, or financially desperate enough to step through the ropes and shake a fist at him.