Articles by Jimmy Tobin

“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 nice fight for the public, I […]

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 (laughably gratuitous) thirty-six minutes. He […]

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 unanimous decision in […]

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 along the tunnel floor. […]

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 along the way by an attendant tormentor, one whose […]

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 the more endearing of boxing’s […]

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’s accept that as true. […]

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 in nineteen fights, and thought […]

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 tape […]

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 full-time politician of Manny […]