Closing the Year with Boxing’s Best

by Kieran Mulvaney

What to do when HBO’s live boxing broadcasts have wrapped for the year? Revisit the very best bouts from an action-packed 2012, of course. The last 12 months have provided some jaw-dropping action, and for five days, beginning December 25, HBO will be showcasing seven of the year’s best examples of boxing brilliance. All times are ET/PT.

Floyd Mayweather vs. Miguel Cotto
Tuesday, December 25 at 11 PM

In May, Puerto Rican superstar Cotto put his junior middleweight belt on the line against pound-for-pound king Mayweather. In one of the finest performances of his likely Hall-of-Fame career, Cotto pushed Money May to the edge, forcing Mayweather to dig deeper than he has had to in at least 10 years.

Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Sergio Martinez
Wednesday, December 26 at 11 PM

Martinez was regarded as the true middleweight champion. But Chavez had the belt he coveted, and Martinez agitated for over a year for an opportunity to take it from him. When the chance came, the Argentine appeared well on his way to doing what he had sought to do, until a dramatic finale that was one of the most explosive rounds of the year.

Robert Guerrero vs. Andre Berto
Thursday, December 27 at 11 PM

Three years ago, Guerrero was campaigning as a junior lightweight, having begun his professional career as a featherweight. One month ago, he appeared on HBO World Championship Boxing in just his second bout as a welterweight, taking on a hard-hitting former 147-pound-title-holder whose own professional debut had been at 162 pounds – almost 37 pounds heavier than Guerrero’s. But Guerrero was the aggressor, dragging Berto into an old-fashioned down-and-dirty street fight that was one of the roughest, toughest and best of 2012.

Antonio DeMarco vs. Adrien Broner
Friday, December 28 at 11 PM

Flashy Adrien “The Problem” Broner inspires a gamut of emotions – and it’s safe to say that few if any of them are ‘indifference.’ Love him or hate him, it is hard not to respect him; increasingly tipped as the sport’s next big star, Broner went a long way to establishing his bona fides with a devastating and dominant performance against Mexican DeMarco.

Andre Ward vs. Chad Dawson
Friday, December 28 at 11:45 PM

Light-heavyweight titlist Dawson took the unusual step of dropping down in weight to take on super middleweight kingpin Ward. He may still be regretting it, after Ward – in many pundits’ eyes, second only to Mayweather on the pound-for-pound list – opened his full bag of tricks and cemented his place among boxing’s elite.

Brandon Rios vs. Mike Alvarado
Saturday, December 29 at 11 PM

The moment this junior welterweight clash was signed, boxing fans everywhere had the date circled on their calendars. Both Rios and Alvarado entered the contest unbeaten and with reputations for possessing that rare combination of immovable object and irresistible force. There seemed no way this could fail to be a serious Fight of the Year candidate, and so it proved. Each man dished out and received hellacious punishment, and the contest swayed back and forth, with first one man and the other seizing advantage and momentum, until an ending that seemed to come almost out of the blue.

Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez 4
Saturday, Dec. 29 at 11:40 PM

Pacquiao and Marquez had pursued each other like Ahab and the whale, across eight years and 36 rounds, before meeting for a fourth time on December 8. Each man insisted beforehand that this would be their final battle, but after six rounds that exceeded even the dizzying heights of their previous encounters, and a conclusive, concussive ending that was among the most shocking and emphatic in years, who would bet against a fifth?

Jim Lampley Previews the Next Installment of ‘The Fight Game’

by Kieran Mulvaney

The third episode of ‘The Fight Game with Jim Lampley’ airs on HBO on Saturday night, following the re-broadcast of last Saturday’s victory by Sergio Martinez over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. We spoke with Lampley, while he was in Las Vegas preparing to call the Martinez-Chavez fight, about what we can expect from episode 3, and what he has learned from producing the previous two episodes.

It’s a very small sample size, but is there anything that has surprised you about the process of putting these shows together, if there is anything that has stood out to you?

My experience on ‘The Fight Game’ has affirmed my perception that there is a very large core within our audience: well-versed, well-educated fight fans, who are on the web maybe every other day and at least once a week, who are following the schedule, who understand the business conflicts and business parameters and how they contribute to what we see in the ring, and who are just as interested in following the business steps that take place from fight to fight as they are the fights themselves.


You threw out the script for episode 2, and went with a powerful editorial slant, including a segment at the end in which you called on fans to ‘occupy boxing.’ I’m curious what was the response to that?

The response from fans is enormous. I’ve always been recognized in the arena; there have always been people who’ve called out my name and wanted an autograph or photograph, something like that. That’s not new. But the intensity of it, and the number of people, is significantly larger than before. People are yelling at me about The Fight Game as soon as I walk into the arena; people are confronting me about it, and asking me what’s on the next show, and that’s very gratifying.

And I have people who send me emails or call me up, both from boxing media and from the fan group, who want to advise me on what to do next and what the editorial content of the next show should be.


What can we expect for episode 3?

You know, 9/22 is an interesting date, because it’s one week beyond this unusual business confrontation of 9/15, and so for me the lead story is obvious: What happened when Chavez Jr. and Canelo Alvarez went head-to-head with each other down the street in Las Vegas, and is that, as most people see it, a sign of the sport’s insanity? Or could it be seen as a positive? Is it a sign that boxing’s health is back, that 19,000 people [were] in the Thomas & Mack Center, and apparently [almost] 15,000 in the MGM Grand? And even though Mexico’s two great attractions were forced to split their audience that night, both business enterprises feel as if they’re going to be making out OK. So maybe our sport isn’t as dead as all those general media people think it is.


Which leads to my final question: Over the years, there has always been despair when the top fighters approach retirement, but there is always somebody else to take their place. As Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao near the end of their careers, did Andre Ward make the definitive case on September 8 that he is next in line to sit in the throne atop the sport?

He certainly came off the page in a big way, and he provided the kind of dramatic excitement that hasn’t always been the case in his other fights. He’s demonstrated extreme competence, and he’s shown that he can beat good opponents, that he can shut them down defensively and with his enormous intelligence, but he has not produced a real offensive explosion prior to last week. And now, viewers have the image of him knocking down Chad Dawson three times, and really exploding with that left hook, and that provides a tantalizing template for the future. Can he do that kind of thing again? Can he do what [Sergio] Martinez has done: going from having a good career to suddenly skyrocketing and saying “Wow, look at me, I’m really one of the best there is”?

Prepare for the Andre Ward Era

by Hamilton Nolan

Andre Ward - Photo Credit:Will Hart

In front of a chaotic hometown crowd in Oakland, California, Andre Ward (26-0) made a rather irrefutable case for himself as boxing's most unbeatable fighter with a domineering tenth round TKO of light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (31-2).

Dawson, who had dropped down to 168 pounds to meet Ward for the super middleweight belt, was a larger fighter who clearly possessed more raw strength. But after a two round feeling-out process, Ward brutally and methodically asserted his volition. He knocked Dawson to his knee for the first time in the third round with a fast, efficient left hook to the temple, and again in the fourth round with the same punch. From that point on, Ward controlled the pacing of the fight and drove the bigger man backwards at will. In the tenth round, Ward again landed his left hook to Dawson’s temple, causing his legs to wobble like a flapper dancer at a Prohibition-era gin joint. Ward rushed in and knocked Dawson down again; he rose, but his legs, swaying drunkenly side to side, told the story of just how much punishment he had taken. The referee called it, and Oracle Arena exploded with cheers of “S.O.G!”

Dawson, a southpaw, possesses all of the physical tools one could hope for in a fighter, but has always suffered from a lack of assertiveness. It killed him tonight. Here is how Andre Ward won: he kept his lead left hand above Chad Dawson’s lead right hand. And Dawson, who prefers to carry his lead hand low, let him. This allowed Ward to turn his left hook into Dawson’s temple with ease. Ward won the fight using only two punches: the left hook, which eventually knocked Dawson senseless, and a straight right to the belly, which he planted whenever Dawson decided to pull his elbows out of his gut and try to protect his skull. Ward neutralized Dawson’s killer straight left with his feet, simply by circling to the outside. He took away Dawson’s right hook by keeping his hand above it and batting it down whenever Dawson deigned to unleash it, which was rarely. That left Dawson with nothing except Ward’s left fist on his mind. 

Read More at HBO.com

Compubox Analysis: Ward vs. Dawson

For most fighters, a career-defining victory is usually followed by the easiest opponent that can still justify a pay-per-view payday. Such is the business of boxing today.

But not so with Andre Ward and Chad Dawson. Ten months after Ward captured the Super Six tournament title and five months after Dawson decisioned Bernard Hopkins to win the WBC light heavyweight belt, they are fighting each other -- without tune-ups. Moreover, Dawson, a 3 ½-1 ‘dog,  is shedding seven pounds for the opportunity to topple an almost universal pound-for-pound entrant in the hopes of adding his own name to those lists.

High risk. High reward. Old-school prize-fighting. This is the way boxing should be.

See more Compubox analysis of Andre Ward vs. Chad Dawson on HBO.com

Roy Jones Previews Ward-Dawson

by Kieran Mulvaney

This Saturday, HBO World Championship Boxing features a genuinely marquee matchup when super middleweight champion Andre Ward defends his crown against light heavyweight top dog Chad Dawson in a rare meeting of titlists from the 168 and 175-pound divisions.

One man who has sat on the throne of both weight classes is future first-ballot Hall-of-Famer Roy Jones, who is unabashedly enthusiastic about the contest. We asked him a few questions about Saturday night's main event.

What are your thoughts about how Ward and Dawson match up?

I think it’s a wonderful matchup. They’re two great fighters. My hat’s off to Ward for accepting the challenge and to Chad for making the challenge. Chad’s going down in weight to make the fight and then going to Oakland, Ward’s hometown, to fight him. That says a lot about Chad.

Strategically, it’s a great matchup. You’ve got a guy in Chad Dawson, who’s a superstar in the light heavyweight division. You’ve got a guy in Andre Ward who has definitely become the best in the super-middleweight division. You’ve got two guys who are close to one another who are willing to fight each other, and you don’t get that too often.

Is it a disadvantage to Dawson that he is moving down from light-heavyweight to super middleweight?

I think if he’s moving down, he already knows that he can make the weight. He challenged, so he’s got to be a guy who’s comfortable coming down in weight. I think he feels very comfortable that he can come down to 168 and be strong.

What does each man have to do to win?

Chad has to keep the fight on the outside and keep attacking Andre to try to bang Andre up. He needs to keep Andre on his back foot so that Andre won’t be able to reach him. I think Andre has to make angles to come at Chad, and he has to keep Chad on his heels, because Chad is used to coming forward and not be backing up.