Smithsonian magazine article on chessboxing

And you? What would you do? If you stuffed your battered shoes with newspapers as a child? If you wore the same shirt to school week after week? If your parents picked up and lit out in a covered wagon from one bleak hinterland to another? If you knocked on doors looking for handouts? If you ate rotting banana skins from trash barrels? If you slept nights in hobo jungles and spent your days in the depths of a gloomy copper mine? If you had Doc Kearns as your right hand man, lopsided grin, hat brim askew, diamond stickpin glittering even on sunless days? What would you have done?

Rate fights like on Yelp, and save your scorecards (and see other fan's cards). Has a fight database that goes back to the 1950s (not all fights, fewer and fewer the farther back in the past you go).

With a hands-down approach and a style that relies on speed and timing–attributes more suited to a younger man’s game–there was always going to be a fight when Martinez, now 38 years old, would no longer have the goods. Time appeared to be creeping up on the Argentinean star in less than spectacular outings against Murray’s countrymen, Darren Barker and Matthew Macklin, but power proved decisive on those occasions. Last night, perhaps due to the inevitable decline that comes with approaching middle age, Martinez was never able to find that dynamic next gear: the flashy southpaw looked flat and vulnerable through much of the contest.

You can roll your eyes at the redemptive narrative of Zab Judah, but the fact that he has clung to relevance over seventeen years is no meager accomplishment. Despite the worst intentions of men like Kostya Tszyu, Miguel Cotto, and Floyd Mayweather, Jr., and a history of self-sabotage that runs the length of the comedo-tragic spectrum, Judah, 42-7 (29), has staved off inconsequence time and again. And while his speed and power—relatively undiminished in his 35th year of life—will continue to award Judah the proverbial puncher’s chance, those physical attributes alone do not explain his materializing against Danny Garcia at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, on Saturday night. CLICK LINK ABOVE FOR MORE.

Article from a couple of weeks ago saying silver medallist Fred Evans plans to turn pro sometime this year.

For those who enjoy seeing Angel Garcia go off.

Las Vegas, Nevada, 1970. His life was a firetrap; his days were dry tinder. A small spark here or there—some ash from a cigarette, perhaps—and the whole ramshackle hovel would go up in roaring flames. You could shovel all the sand in the world on it, hose it down with the entire Atlantic Ocean—nothing was going to stop that conflagration. Click link for more.