Bad Left Hook, Global Boxing News and Commentary

By Carlos Acevedo of The Cruelest Sport. One of the strangest—and most divisive—fights to come along in years is finally upon us when Manny Pacquiao faces Antonio Margarito tomorrow night for a dubious junior middleweight title at Dallas Cowboys Stadium. There are enough questions surrounding this event to make deciphering the plot of The Big Sleep seem like a cinch. Featuring a disgraced former welterweight star, Margarito, against a boxer who won his first title at flyweight, this fight, set at 150 pounds, has so many subplots surrounding it that anything seems possible. Read more...

By Carlos Acevedo of The Cruelest Sport. Conflicting reports concerning Manny Pacquiao and his training camp are surely part hype. Most folks understand that. So why get so worked up over it? Some have taken to deriding fairly tame stories emerging from the Philippines lately with the kind of bite forum beasts confuse with rhetoric. Read the rest here...

By Carlos Acevedo of The Cruelest Sport. With Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito in training for their hot button bout scheduled for November 13 in Dallas, Texas, talk still seems dominated by everything but the matchup itself. Incredibly, there are still some folks out there purple proselytizing about this fight, apparently in the interest of stimulating a specific G-spot–that of Google AdSense, perhaps. In addition to the Pugilistic Morals Squad (P.M.S.), who are talking boycotts and watered-down ethics, there are those who have issues with the selection of Margarito based on boxing fallacies. Some complain about Pacquiao requesting a catchweight to fight Margarito and then make drunken wisdom sound like Maimonides when they decry the fact that Pacquio is not fighting a lightweight–Juan Manuel Marquez. They also make the dubious claim that Pacquiao–with a contractually guaranteed minimum of well over $10 million per fight–should be facing opponents who are practically anonymous–Tim Bradley and Andre Berto, for example–despite the fact that Margarito has a bigger name and a far more impressive resume than either of the aforementioned. Bradley "sells out" a small casino in California because his promoter lurks around the box office snapping up the many, many, many available tickets. The less said about Berto–a man who sold 973 tickets to his last "championship defense–" the better. Read the rest here...

By Carlos Acevedo of The Cruelest Sport. Fallout from the Antonio Margarito situation continues and it is probably still worth delving into a few points on the radioactive matter. However, barring any significant developments, this will be the penultimate post on The Cruelest Sport concerning the Margarito controversy. There are some reductive folks out there who might consider these comments a "defense" of Margarito and of the status quo. But they are merely attempts to provide context, something rare in boxing coverage, and to make the simple point that opinions—both informed and uninformed—are not truths. Read the rest here...

By Carlos Acevedo of The Cruelest Sport. Antonio Margarito has become the sanctimonious hobby horse of the hour. In a comical hearing not exactly the dramatic equivalent of Jimmy Stewart in Anatomy of A Murder or Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird, Antonio Margarito, shot down by a 5-1 vote against, was denied a license to fight by the California State Athletic Commission. Insisting that the doctored knucklepad was the sole work of his trainer, the Renfield-like Javier Capitello, Margarito will have to go elsewhere in the United States for a license. Read the rest here...