“According to more than a few, this was always in the offing: Sebastian Fundora, that six-foot-six, 154-pound impossibility, would one day lay stretched like a late-day shadow across the canvas. With only enough exceptions to firmly establish the rule, this is the fate of every fighter, in case you were unsure of how to esteem such predictions. And yet there was at least the expectation that Fundora would meet his reckoning when the stakes were higher, the caliber of opponent calibrated to them. For Fundora, there was this fight, and then the next, and if need be, the next after that: whatever was required to secure him a territory changing hands even under the lion’s lengthy rule.”

Read The Arborist: Brian Mendoza Stuns Sebastian Fundora on Hannibal Boxing.

“At least early, this grudge match was a fight only when Plant was willing, and so surely, the logic at ringside went, that fight must be his. How then, to explain the eighth round, when fortunes changed suddenly and permanently in Benavidez’s favor? In truth, the eighth was the product of what preceded it: Benavidez’s ability to take a little bit out of Plant in even the rounds he appeared to be losing. His first punch of the night, a jab thrown directly at Plant’s left glove, a little “fuck you!” signaling the sincerity of all those evil proclamations, was followed by a protracted beating, an exercise in delayed gratification.”

Read Plant-based Diet: David Benavidez UD12 Caleb Plant on Hannibal Boxing.

“They left the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia, changed men, versions of themselves that, if not quite recognizable before the opening bell, were undeniable in the aftermath. Junior middleweights Tim Tszyu and Tony Harrison shared a common goal, pursued the same target, but were doing so on widely divergent paths. That divergence, too, was revealed ex post facto. Those distinct trajectories intersected for nine rounds, about as many as Tszyu had predicted, as many as Harrison is likely to manage when the night belongs to the man across the ring from him.”

Read In the Name of the Father: Tim Tszyu Overpowers Tony Harrison on Hannibal Boxing.