Posts by Eric Raskin

  • Better Call, Saul: Canelo Alvarez Finds the Right Opponent

    Part of the idea behind this fight — Canelo’s return from the Floyd Mayweather humbling — was to find out what the boxing world really has in Alvarez, a 23-year-old ticket-seller for whom a three-pay-per-view year was planned, despite an 0-1 record as a PPV headliner. Some were so encouraged by Alfredo Angulo’s near-victory against Erislandy Lara that they were picking the upset. Most thought he’d at least test Canelo. He didn’t.

  • The Educated Consumer’s Guide to Upcoming Boxing Expenditures

    You want to follow the fight game? You want to watch the most important fights of the first half of 2014? Well, it’s going to cost you.

  • Timothy Bradley

    The Triple-Threat Match for Fighter of the Year

    Sucker punches at weigh-ins. Judges filling out their scorecards in advance. Referees stopping fights at the count of nine. The “why wait?” attitude pervades boxing, so we at Grantland figure why wait until the end of the year to kick off our awards season? Nothing can happen over the next three weeks that will impact […]

  • Gatti Ward

    The World Will Never Stop Paying Tribute to Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward, Nor Should It

    Provided clinch-happy heavyweight champ Wladimir Klitschko isn’t involved, it’s rare that the lasting image from a boxing match is that of a hug. But a hug is precisely what I picture when the subject of the third and final fight between Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward comes up. Over a period of 13 months they […]

  • Canelo Floyd

    Is a Mayweather Loss What’s Best for Boxing?

    On June 16, 2012, a week after the Tim Bradley–Manny Pacquiao decision that launched every conspiracy theory short of a fourth judge on the grassy knoll, HBO broadcaster Larry Merchant uttered possibly the most perfect quote I’ve heard in my 16 years covering the sport: “Nothing will kill boxing, and nothing can save it.” It’s […]

  • Lucas Matthysse

    The Boxing Business Gets It Right, for a Change

    Traditionally, there has been no place for long-term thinking in boxing. If fighters permitted themselves much contemplation of the lasting effects of what they do for a living, few would become fighters in the first place. The same goes for fans, who either block out images of their punch-drunk former heroes or rationalize them by […]

  • Chris Moneymaker Illo

    When We Held Kings

    The oral history of the 2003 World Series of Poker, in which an amateur named Moneymaker turned $39 into $2.5 million and the poker boom was born.

  • Boxing

    We Went There: Matthysse Makes a Statement in Atlantic City

    This wasn’t supposed to be a blog post about Floyd Mayweather. The Lucas Matthysse–Lamont Peterson fight on Saturday night at Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall had nothing to do with Mayweather. This was a fight between two of the best three junior welterweights (the division below where Mayweather fights) in the world, designed to produce a […]

  • Floyd Mayweather

    How to Beat Floyd Mayweather

    With apologies to Bernard Hopkins, Richard Alpert, and the girls of Lee High School, everybody gets old. The notion of an athlete growing old “overnight” is mostly a myth; it almost always occurs gradually. In the case of boxers, sure, one punch can ruin a man. But typically, that one punch was the logical successor […]

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr.

    Is the Public Still Buying ‘Money’ Mayweather in 2013?

    May Day (proper noun): The name recently given to an unofficial boxing holiday, so called because Floyd Mayweather is about to headline a boxing pay-per-view event on the first Saturday in May for the fourth time in seven years. Mayday (noun): The international radio distress signal, from the French m’aider, or “help me.” We won’t […]

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