Beyond Boxing

Boxing loves to shoot itself in the foot. How can we go from Jaron Ennis and Xander Zayas giving us one of the best fights we’ve seen in the last 10 years to having to deal with Tyson Fury fighting Mariusz Wach. With him then offering his fig leaf of charitable donations when he could easily cover the charitable donation on his own, But once again, he just wants to milk the fans for what he can. I...

It’s notoriously difficult to get removed from a no-entry or travel prohibition list. In Tyson Fury’s case, how he’s managed to do so remains unclear. Whether additional concessions were required is anyone’s guess. What does seem possible is that he may have had to cooperate with certain interests along the way, and perhaps that’s simply how the world works. If there’s one sport that prepares you...

They really had John Fury out there running about like Uncle Albert?

You can’t help it feel that watching the Zuffa card was like watching a Boxxer card from 2023. So, if you’re Ben Shalom you must be sat at home raging that the fighters you help build have just been taken from you, and put in exactly the same place you left them, and you received no compensation. No thank you no reward no nothing. That must really hurt.

Last night’s main event had all the ingredients of a defining moment—but instead, it left us debating the referee. As Rico Verhoeven pushed himself against the elite pedigree of Oleksandr Usyk, the fight was hanging in the balance. He was under pressure, no doubt, but still on his feet and within touching distance of the bell. And that’s where the controversy begins. Should the referee have steppe...

What are we just seen? Seriously? What have we just seen? We have seen the most dramatic world title fight we’ve seen in the UK for a long time. We saw two men put their bodies and literally their lives on the line, and you wonder if either Man will be the same again. In a perverse way, that is exactly why we love the sport of boxing.

Time to remove more frauds from the game.

Doping is a serious problem in boxing. Whether the sport is dirty, or people are sailing too close to the wind, something has to change. We also need to look at why VADA is catching everyone and UKAD is catching nobody. What of VADA did other sports, what would they find?

When we hit the milestone episodes, you know I have to go back to the essence - where it all started. So today, i am joined by martin and Andi, the legends that built the New Age Boxing podcast, father to much of what came after. Not sure what we did today, but we had fun writing a few wrongs and poking a few bears. Enjoy.

The fun and games of a boxing weigh-in.

Without doubt, Moses Itauma is a special talent and you sense his moment will arrive soon. The hope is that his career lasts a long time and that means he has the pressure of remaining hungry, dedicated and in love with the sport. What a good feeling it is to see big shows, in big arenas, in the UK. You cannot beat that atmoshere.

Geopolitics have really accelerated the boxing recession. Everyone is fighting for the last few dollars left on the table, but the fans aren't buying into all of it this time.

The fact that Mayweather-Pacquiao II is the biggest fight in boxing says everything about the mess boxing has become since they left the scene. Had we had the fights we deserved, maybe we wouldn't be watching this. But, respect to both men for never letting their standards drop and still being legitmate top 10 welterweights at their age.

Boxing is dog-eat-dog. Not many boxers get the opportunity to do the eating, but Conor Benn did. Watch the Matchroom Mujaheddin start attacking Conor, for their heroes and masters...

There’s clearly a lot more to this Conor Benn and Matchroom relationship than we are being led to believe because Conor would’ve made good money with Matchroom, and so for him to leave and move to Zuffa, and essentially relocate his whole career to the United States tells us that maybe the garden wasn’t as rosy as people made out. You never saw them being particularly close which is always a red f...

It’s very hard if not impossible to to fight someone you’ve looked up to for a long time and Teofimo Lopez faced that challenge against Stevenson. He had to fight someone he knew was more skilled more experienced and an all-round better fighter. The sad part about it is he did nothing different to what he would’ve done had he fought anybody else a mistake that Stevenson prayed upon and that mistak...

The grass is rarely greener than where you are right now. Daniel Dubois has perhaps learned that lesson. In life, there is value in committing and building partnerships and legacies, which Daniel and Don Charles have a chance to do.

Dalton Smith has brought hope to Sheffield and this could be a new dawn for Yorkshire boxing. But... the big story is the fall-out from the movie Giant. Whichever side you go for just know that these relationships are more complex than we can ever learn from video interviews. What we can say is that both men will look at that period and know they could have handled the whole situation better.

The UK-Africa boxing experiment has been a disaster. It smells of colonialism, or at bet, a cynical cash-grab without having to invest in UK fighters. But, it points to the desperation these promoters have to make money at all costs, no matter how much damage it does to the brand.

When you carry on like Andrew Tate and you say the things that he says, the only way you should ever lose a fight is on your shield. You can never go out soft, the world will not allow you to go out soft after everything you have said. On Saturday night, we saw Andrew Tate go out soft he looked very hollow looked very weak, looked very human, very average and all he did in fighting Chase Demoor th...

When it’s all said and done, moments like this Jake Paul v Anthony Joshua circus will be the moment Boxing lost it soul. For generations, we were able to tell the public that the sport was so hard you had to be a specialist in this thing we called Boxing. We told people it took years of mastery. It took a very tough human being. It took a very special individual to be able to compete in Boxing and...

That Monaco show was disastrous for a few prospects who will clearly never be world champions now. It also gave Eddie Hearn a chance to clear some. Deadwood out the stable.

When someone like Jeami TKV upsets the odds, we should celebrate it because it is a chance for them to change their lives because that is what this sport is about. We need more warriors like him and Frazer Clarke to take the sport forward.

When you hear that theme music, you know it's serious. Boxxer blew threw an estimated £32m of our money to give us a worse stable than they started with. This BBC deal feels like the last days of Boxxer. Can anyone see them turning it around? You cant have a circus bear dancing around before a fight against a nail technician. It degrades the sport.

Anthony Yarde has to be the best managed boxer in recent British boxing history. The young man is a millionaire. He’s fought for world titles three times against three people who will definitely be on the ballot for the Boxing Hall of Fame and he’s been able to secure endorsement deals and hopefully secure future for himself and his family But none of that should mask over the fact that this weeke...