“Chatter from the VIP tables was not about how Chris Van Heerden, for all his plucky insolence, at no point posed a threat to welterweight Errol Spence, or how Tommy Karpency was given the opportunity to face Adonis Stevenson in part because the crisp right hand he landed in the second round would be as close to victory as Karpency would ever come. If the PBC’s plan is to obfuscate what prizefighting should be about—two men of comparable ability paid to harrow each other in a spectacle of unmaking—and replace it with gatherings where violence is a backdrop to a social event, where the celebrity of the fighters supersedes their achievement and the pageantry of the proceedings is the primary criterion of its quality, Toronto warrants a return.”

Read “Cheap Celebrity: Adonis Stevenson Headlines Premier Boxing Champions in Toronto” on The Cruelest Sport.

“Mayweather-Berto is a fight even Mayweather’s most devoted acolytes are struggling to work themselves rigid over. But enough of Mayweather’s self-appointed members of The Money Team: those in their ranks whose primary interest was never boxing will, as Bart Barry put it with his typical acuity, be gone soon enough. The rest will have a library of fights to worship if not watch, some articles of clothing; the satisfaction of knowing their man is clearly TBE since the present, by virtue of their living it, is clearly better than the past.”

Read Neither Ripple Nor Echo: Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Andre Berto Preview on The Cruelest Sport.

“Leo Santa Cruz outpointed Abner Mares over twelve spirited rounds at Staples Center in Los Angeles last night, giving the 13,109 in attendance a reason to keep their ticket stubs. Because Santa Cruz-Mares, for now, is a fight worthy of a little memento, one people will remember fondly at least until the year is through, and the internet is overrun with articles bestowing unsolicited awards on fighters ever unaware that they have won them.”

Read Fever Pitch: Leo Santa Cruz W12 Abner Mares on The Cruelest Sport.