Lomachenko’s formidable amateur credentials are not distinction enough—he need only ask Guillermo Rigondeaux and Andre Ward if people are hypnotized by swaying gold medals before their eyes. No, if Lomachenko is going to maximize his earning potential—and maybe capture an imagination or two in the process—he needs to tuck his medals under his shirt, find the baddest man on the block, and roll him for his gold.
Read Diamonds & Rust: Orlando Salido-Vasyl Lomachenko Preview on The Cruelest Sport.
This fight is sure to end definitively for Lopez—in victory or defeat—because “Juanma” will have it no other way. The former Olympian from Rio Piedras began his career 24-0, with 22 knockouts, and cut down his opposition like sugar cane on the Hacienda Mercedita. But that approach began demanding a stiffer price. Outgunned, but with cunning to spare, Gerry Penalosa tagged Lopez repeatedly before yielding to youth and size. Two fights later, Rogers Mtagwa took untold punishment before sending the exhausted Lopez reeling in the final round. Then Bernabe Concepcion floored him, and a faded Rafael Marquez provided Lopez with more harrowing moments than the script called for.
Read All That Matters: Juan Manuel Lopez Returns Against Daniel Ponce De Leon on the Cruelest Sport.
“The ring is my job.” – Gennady Golovkin
It is as refreshing as it is rare to hear a fighter speak so plainly about his bloody business, and rarer still to hear these words from a fighter who has captured the imagination of even the most skeptical observers. Fans of the “manly art” are as quick to embrace fighters whose language reflects boxing’s high stakes as they are to smell weakness in perspective. Yet, without platitudes middleweight headsman Gennady Golovkin continues to spellbind with little more than his professionalism and the violence it begets.
Read Working Stiff: Gennady Golovkin TKO7 Osumanu Adama on The Cruelest Sport.
In Between Rounds 