“If Alvarez is indeed on the decline, Ryder should be grateful. Because if that assessment is as accurate as it is curious coming from a man beaten purple, Ryder got off easy. Against a prime Alvarez, he might have had his breathing compromised not by a broken nose but by a liver traumatically removed. Ryder might have been spared a round or three, the opportunity to lean so heavily on his preternatural toughness, and thus denied the reward of his futile challenge. Instead, Ryder had his nose broken in round two, survived a knockdown in round five, and won four rounds total in the eyes of three judges—and for that, a hero’s welcome awaits him in England.”

Read Stopping Short of the End: On Saul Alvarez on Hannibal Boxing.

“And yet this much remains true: Garcia-Davis happened because both fighters wanted it. Garcia was not ready for Davis and might never be, but he was willing to find out. Garcia was not daring to be great: that phrase is too often a flattering defense for matchmaking miscalculation—he was thankfully, however, daring to not waste our time.”

Read The Abyss: Gervonta Davis KO7 Ryan Garcia on Hannibla Boxing.

“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.