“Boxing isn’t professional wrestling, and what success the Charlos had achieved by the time they hammered out their signature victories was not the product of a gimmick designed to manipulate the reactions of an expertly diagnosed audience. The Charlos could fight. Moreover, they could at times—though too infrequently—do so with a prejudice befitting their profession. Williams and Lubin were not beaten; they were destroyed, humiliated, left silent thereby. However easy the mind moves toward questions of rank, the question the Charlos encouraged one to consider was not how good the brothers were so much as which matchups would best furnish that answer. Because were the Charlos to synergize their malice and talent as they did against Williams and Lubin, respectively, the outcomes of their fights would be a secondary concern. And in a fractious and fractured business isn’t the promise of a little well-spilled blood reason enough to get excited?”

Read The Waning: On Jermell and Jermall Charlo on Hannibal Boxing.

“Besides, what is most charming about Crawford is not his skills, wonderful as they may be. No, what makes Crawford so rewarding to watch is what drove him to hunt Benavidez long after the fight’s outcome was inevitable. Although his jawing at Benavidez on media day was dismissed as contrived—ditto the weigh-in punch he intentionally whistled harmlessly off target—know that Crawford stopped Benavidez because the latter was owed a beating, and Crawford would find little satisfaction in squandering even that final sixty-second opportunity to deliver it.”

Read Maximum Penalty: Terence Crawford Stops Jose Benavidez Jr. on Hannibal Boxing.

“Some will, of course, deny him this and anything else they can. They will ask what happened to the bogeyman with the absurd knockout ratio—if only to provide the answer they think best diminishes the fighter and his accomplishments. Such is Golovkin’s fate, and perhaps rightly so. Did he get old in his mid-thirties, as pressure fighters typically do? Perhaps. But then Golovkin is likely to still crumple all but the four or five best fighters in his division, so pointing to age as the crucial factor behind the diminished returns of his recent fights must to his detractors feel far too charitable. They would assert instead that it was a rather drastic improvement in his opposition that made a man of the monster. Trust that Golovkin’s supporters would respond by saying he should still be undefeated and so, man or monster, he remains the class of the division.”

Read The Transfer of Power: On Saul Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin on Hannibal Boxing.