Boxing News

Puerto Rico has been the proud home of many boxing champions throughout history. From Sixto Escobar, to Carlos Ortiz and Jose “Chegui” Torres, to Wilfredo Benitez, Wifredo Gomez and a host of other champions in Puerto Rico’s heyday of boxing in the 1980’s, the torch has always been passed to up-and-coming new champions that each generation

has idolized and revered. One of the greatest of all Puerto Rican champions to proudly represent the island in countless championship fights was Felix “Tito” Trinidad. In addition to his obvious talent and raw knockout power, Trinidad also became a Puerto Rican icon because of his contagious enthusiasm for the sport, his humble nature and his fierce pride in his homeland. In contrast to some of the trash-talking, arrogant fighters that exist today, Trinidad was a fighter who would come into every fight looking like he was having the time of his life. His happy demeanor and wildly exciting fighting style made it very easy for Puerto Ricans and boxing fans in general to become Trinidad fans. Overlooked in the beginning of his career, Trinidad made it impossible for anyone to overlook him as he began to accumulate wins over some very big names in boxing. He went on to a gloried, “Hall of Fame” career. Now Trinidad has retired, seemingly for good this time; and Puerto Ricans are left looking for the “heir apparent.” That title seems destined to fall upon Miguel Cotto. More...

For many of us fans, boxing enjoyed a period of great fights and great fighters in the late seventies and eighties, which has not been equaled since. Fighters like Leonard, Hearns, Hagler, Duran, Arguello and others were in their heyday. The heavyweight division, arguably the most popular among many boxing fans, had Larry Holmes and later Mike Tyson. Boxing enjoyed popularity unmatched by many other sports. Today, boxing is still popular. But the public consensus is that its popularity is in decline. The up-and-coming generations, from which future sports fans will come, are generally less knowledgeable and less interested in the sport or its history. Other than Muhammad Ali, the mention of some of the greats mentioned above will prompt an answer of, “Huh?” from many young fans. Understandably, this is of great concern to those of us who have always loved and followed the sport.

Join SaddoBoxing's Reynaldo Sambolin as he examines how boxing can take steps to heal its currently low popularity level in the mainstream sport's arena. More...

(Tuesday Night Fights in Boston, MA)

I was not too familiar with the boxers scheduled to fight on ESPN2’s Tuesday Night Fights, but the main event was in the middleweight division, so I figured I was very likely to be entertained. Little did I know that the real entertainment would come in a four-round under-card fight. The main event, held in Boston, featured middleweights Ian Gardner (18-2, with 7 KOs) versus Mohammad Said (16-4, with 10 KOs). Gardner, a light-hitting southpaw from Brockton, Massachusetts, was the hometown favorite. The fight was one-sided, with the awkward, sometimes hot-dogging Gardner obtaining a unanimous decision win over the stocky, slow and plodding Said. But the main event was not nearly as entertaining as the wild four-rounder immediately preceding the fight. This fight pitted hometown favorite Chris McInerney, a twenty-six-year-old cruiserweight with a 3-0 record (all by knockout), versus “sacrificial lamb” Anterio Vines, a fighter with a decisively unimpressive 4-5 record who was coming off two consecutive first round knockout losses. It was clear to the live audience, the television commentators, and the television audience that Vines had been brought in to increase McInerney’s record to 4-0 with four knockouts. More...

It was with great sadness that I reacted to Thomas “The Hit Man” Hearns’ recent announcement that he would be getting back into the ring at age forty-six. Hearns is one of my all-time favorite boxers. What I remember most about him is that he never seemed to have a boring, uneventful boxing match.

***The Hitmen*** © Mike Cleary

His fights were always fast and furious. Who can forget his first fight with “Sugar” Ray Leonard? An epic battle with many stage; Hearns standing flat-footed and trying to land the big right hand, Leonard dancing around looking for an opening, Leonard hurting Hearns to the body, Hearns turning boxer and shooting the jab at Leonard’s deteriorating left eye. It was a seesaw battle, with various changes in momentum, which finally ended in a dramatic TKO victory for Leonard. How about his three-round knockout at the hands of “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler in 1985? No other fight before or since has matched this one for pure, unadulterated savagery packed into three short rounds. Hearns’ fights were about knockouts, administered or received. It was the famous Hearns right hand which pulverized Jose “Pipino” Cuevas, and another right hand which shut the lights out for Roberto Durán during the eighties. This is the Hearns that I, and millions of boxing fans around the world, remember. Why then, is Hearns coming back, at the ancient boxing age of forty-six, for another go-round in the ring? More...

Boxing fans are an intense, excitable bunch. I should know, I am one of them. Most every boxing fan remembers the fight or fighter that got them interested in the sport. In my case, it was the first Ali-Frazier fight, back in 1971. The buildup prior to the fight was huge, at least by 1971 standards. I still remember reading a long, interesting article in Sports Illustrated a week or so before the fight. The boxer versus the puncher. The article beautifully depicted the upcoming fight as not just a boxing match, but as a battle between two very dissimilar men with a genuine dislike for one another. Before that fight, boxing never interested me. But like thousands (maybe millions) of others, I got caught up in the hype. I remember rooting for Ali right from the start. If the sense of anticipation was great, the fight more than lived up to the hype. Although Ali lost the fight, the result punctuated by Frazier’s left hook, which floored Ali in the fourteenth round; the fight was an instant classic. From then on, I was hooked. I had become a boxing fan. More...