The crowd-pleasing Kazakh is unhappy that a superfight with Canelo Álvarez has been tabled yet again, which could spell bad news for stand-in Danny JacobsStop me if you’ve heard the one about the middleweight who was too good to get a big fight, the prodigious talent who time and again found himself on the raw end of the elemental risk-versus-reward calculus at matchmaking’s essence. Once upon a time it was Charley Burley, described by no less estimable fistic minds than Eddie Futch and Ray Arcel as the greatest all-round fighter either had ever set eyes on, whose formidable ability and skin color in the 1940s cruelly conspired to earn him the unenviable title of best ever boxer to never be...
Bernard Hopkins was the best pure middleweight since Marvin Hagler but he could not get a grip on humility in the ringBernard Hopkins should be remembered as the best pure middleweight since Marvin Hagler. Although The Executioner might not have beaten the “Marvelous” bald one, they would have had a hell of a fight, and there is a case to put Hopkins alongside him in the all‑time top 10 of the division. However, his legacy will be tarnished by the very quality that made him so formidable for so long: pride.At the Forum in Inglewood, California, on Saturday night, in the eighth round of the 65th and last fight of his 28-year career, Hopkins, who will be 52 next month, was...
Doc Holliday says the heavyweight champion can ‘earn a billion’ as the Joshua camp insist the days of fighting patsies are well and truly overFor Anthony Joshua, the easy nights are over. His third‑round blowout of the reluctant Eric Molina in Manchester on Saturday night to retain his IBF world heavyweight title, while again disappointing fans who want to see him in a proper fight, has nevertheless thrust him into boxing’s stratosphere.Doc Holliday, a seasoned boxing face from America who accompanied Molina in the absence of the Texan’s promoter, Don King, predicted Joshua would “earn a billion” from boxing. Well, extrapolating from the £15m he and Wladimir Klitschko might have earned had the Ukrainian been his opponent on Saturday night (as...
Anthony Joshua is the British heavyweight who should be making headlines this week and he is likely to make short work of Eric Molina on SaturdayEven when he’s not the story, David Haye makes himself the story. The British heavyweight who should be in the spotlight this week is Anthony Joshua, who lines up the veteran Eric Molina for a hat-trick of American bodies to dispatch in defence of his IBF title in Manchester on Saturday night.But Haye grabbed the microphone and the headlines at a press conference to announce his non-title fight against Tony Bellew next March when he gave the promoter, Eddie Hearn, the benefit of his wisdom in an extended rant that even drowned out Bellew. Hearn,...
As the new Formula One champion’s shock decision to retire shows, once the hunger for success goes, the dangers in sports like F1 become apparentProfessional athletes lead a crazily short and often lucrative working life, over within a decade or so of its beginning, wreathed in success or disappointment. Memories of glory, often embellished, are revived in middle age for nostalgia or for reheating in ill-advised comebacks.It is unlikely the 31-year-old Nico Rosberg will be returning to his dangerous sport. Nor will the 26-year-old Nick Blackwell – but for wholly different reasons. Blackwell, the middleweight boxer who nearly died eight months ago, was still recovering in hospital on Friday from injuries sustained in a recent sparring session his father, John,...