IBR on The Cruelest Sport

A few of boxing’s unspoken rules will manifest when featherweights Mikey Garcia and Juan Manuel Lopez square off at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, Saturday night. One such rule, the soft first defense, dictates a new champion savor the accomplishments of his title winning effort by dispatching an overmatched opponent. Garcia, owner of this fight’s strap, scored his hardware in a January slap-up of diehard Orlando Salido. Lopez has shared the ring with Salido as well, getting knocked silly both times.

Read Form For Fury: Mikey Garcia-Juan Manuel Lopez Preview on The Cruelest Sport.

IBR on The Cruelest Sport

There is a military rigidity of thought to welterweight Marcos Maidana, a charming lust for destruction that permits no deviation. This is not to mistake him for being particularly skilled—he is certainly not one of the sport’s more refined practitioners, or even one of its best—but there is something undeniably endearing about his stubborn pursuit of the knockout, and his acceptance of the inevitable abuse endured to secure it. Josesito Lopez has shown a similar commitment to machismo, and expectations for havoc were high when the two met at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, Saturday night. After six grueling rounds, Lopez succumbed to Maidana’s superior firepower, but not before emptying his own clip.

Read FIREPOWER: Marcos Maidana TKO6 Josesito Lopez on The Cruelest Sport.

IBR on The Cruelest Sport

In his essay “The Tyranny of Visions,” Thomas Sowell writes that visions are inescapable because of the limits of knowledge (one might argue this limitation holds their appeal as well). The crucial question for Sowell is “whether visions provide a basis for theories to be tested or for dogmas to be proclaimed and imposed.” With Mayweather, the vision has grown as the tests have receded. This is not entirely his fault of course, as he has run through the gamut of realistic challenges and is facing arguably his toughest available test next (barring some overweening request that he face a middleweight). But there are glaring omissions in Mayweather’s impressive record—like Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito—and asterisks abound: neither Shane Mosley nor Miguel Cotto were in their primes when Mayweather agreed to face them. And saying that Mayweather would have beaten these men at their best is not much of a rebuttal—such conjecture only reiterates the vision. The point is that the opportunity to test the vision of Floyd Mayweather, Jr., has largely passed, leaving us with the proclamation of dogma.

Read Vision Thing: On Floyd Mayweather Jr on The Cruelest Sport.