When Two Pound-for-Pounders Face Off, Anything Can Happen

by Hamilton Nolan

Boxing, unlike saner, better organized sports, is prone to leaving its fans wishing for matchups that never take place. Pacquiao vs. Mayweather. Gamboa vs. JuanMa. Golovkin vs. anyone good. Boxing fans are used to the disappointment of “what if”s. Which makes the fact that Nonito Donaire is preparing to fight Guillermo Rigondeaux all the more remarkable. It is one of the very best talent matchups in boxing. And despite that, the fight actually got made.

Donaire (31-1), widely considered one of the top five pound for pound fighters in the world, spent the past year running through four very good super bantamweight opponents in brutal fashion, en route to Fighter of the Year honors. His left hook, which in his last fight left Jorge Arce twitching on the ground like a seizure victim, is the most feared in the sport. Yet he’s far from one dimensional; last October, Toshiaki Nishioka kept his guard up against Donaire’s left hook all night, only to be knocked out cold with a straight right hand.

Read the Complete Nonito Donaire vs. Guillermo Rigondeaux Fight Overview at HBO.com.

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

Is Golovkin’s Power Enough to Provoke Upheaval?

by Hamilton Nolan

The middleweight division -- once you get past its two glamorous box office stars, Sergio Martinez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. -- is blessed with a large quantity of quality, solid, powerful fighters. And it is cursed by the fact that many of them are Eastern European, making them difficult to market to the North American market. One of these men has the potential to make everyone forget their standard geographic prejudices and take notice: Gennady Golovkin.

At 30 years old, Golovkin (23-0) is too old to be labeled a prospect. He bears a greater honor: the most avoided middleweight fighter in the world. Since medaling in the 2004 Olympics for Kazakhstan, Golovkin has been unable to entice anyone with a bigger name than Kassim Ouma to take him on, despite clearly possessing world class talent and the potential to become a pound-for-pound fighter, should he ever get the chance to prove himself against the division's best. Golovkin carries his hands high, throws straight punches, and is generally fundamentally sound; he is not flashy, at first glance. But a highlight reel of his victims tells the real tale of his talent: He possesses some of the heaviest hands in boxing. Golovkin packs the sort of deceptive power that often causes his opponents to drop from unspectacular shots, as if they've been hit by a cement block. His kind of power can't be taught. He's dangerous in every moment. His deceptively straightforward style makes him all the more dangerous.

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Mayweather vs. Cotto: A Master in the Art of Defense

By Hamilton Nolan

Photo Credit: Will Hart

Floyd Mayweather has several things that Miguel Cotto does not: some of the fastest hands inboxing, steel trap defensive skills, and all of the gloating self-indulgence of a classic anti-hero.Miguel Cotto has at least one thing that Floyd Mayweather does not: grace. Unfortunately forCotto, in boxing, the bad guys often win.

The most spectacular thing in this sport is not a crushing Klitschko knockout, or a blinding flurryfrom Manny Pacquiao; it is the sight of Floyd Mayweather—by all appearances possessed ofthe same human body as the rest of us—disappearing behind an impenetrable defensive cageof shoulders, hands, and elbows. Mayweather has the eerie ability to stand in front of a verygood fighter and never get hit. A rolled shoulder there, a lifted forearm there, a bend at thewaist there, and next thing you know, he's 42-0 and you can count on one hand the numberof clean punches he's taken in the past five years. Since he can't be hit, Mayweather prefersto luxuriate in the ring, picking his preferred spots, demoralizing his opponents with sharp jabsalong with left hooks and straight rights that both fly just as fast and connect as often as jabs,leaving an opponent with no offensive or defensive weak spots to key on. Besides the bestdefense in boxing, Mayweather is also boxing's most precise puncher, and one of its smartestring tacticians. It really doesn't seem fair, sometimes.

Read More at HBO.com

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