If you know about us already and come around very often, you probably already know that TIME dubbed this site one of the top 25 blogs in the whole wide Internet this past week. (Thanks, TIME.) If you don't know much else about us, here are some things you should!
- Other big publications think we're swell, too, like The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and a whole list of them on the left side of the home page. Give the whole home page a spin, yeah? Like, that list of boxing champions also on the left? It springs from a project co-founded by yours truly.
- We have a Facebook page that you should follow. It's good for keeping up with our newest posts, but also for the Boxing Tweet of the Week, discussion, "best of" posts, news tidbits and discussion.
- There's a Queensberry Rules Radio show that's high quality. It's co-hosted by our own Patrick Connor, who tags up with Bad Left Hook's James Foley and features intelligent, insightful commentary on the sport, often with guests from other media outlets.
- We're a part of The Guardian's Sport Network, which means you can often read us over there, too, and see yet more discussion in the comments section of each post.
- We're all on Twitter, talking boxing all the time. We are @tqbr, @axmcc, @safesideotr, @integrital, @sonofduran, @pryor_notices and @joeholzer.
OK then. Less talk about us, more talk about boxing here on out. We have the subjects in the headline, plus the odd response to the appealed Malik Scott "knockout," how HBO is or is not treating its "stars," the Alexa Ariza "soap opera" and other things that might not need to be in "quotation marks."
Quick Jabs
It didn't get all that much attention this week given how much griping there had been about it beforehand, but Juan Manuel Marquez has now given blood samples to the Nevada State Athletic Commission in advance of his October welterweight HBO pay-per-view showdown with Timothy Bradley, as first reported by The Sweet Science's Kelsey McCarson and first confirmed on the record by me on Twitter. Bradley, per Chris Robinson, who recently interviewed him, is no longer threatening to pull out of the fight. That also means that this earlier story on BoxingScene by Bill Emes quoting promoter Bob Arum as saying the drug testing dispute was squashed was accurate, despite erroneous claims to the contrary made the day after Marquez had given his sample. This is no small matter, given the skepticism about Marquez's power after the Manny Pacquiao knockout and his affiliation with the controversial Memo Heredia. There was doubt in some quarters about whether the NSAC could get its drug testing house up in any short amount of time, and they have. They'll be using the World Anti-Doping Agency standard, NSAC's Keith Kizer told me, which would also mean a 4:1 T/E ratio rather than Nevada's 6:1 standard. If the NSAC would confirm it was using CIR (sorry for the jargon), then pretty much all of the biggest questions would be off the table — the T/E and CIR issues had been two of the biggest knocks on the potential adequacy of NSAC's testing compared to, say, the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association. Kizer, alas, has not answered whether CIR will be used, which strikes me as a misstep, but the boss of the lab Nevada is using, the Sports Medicine and Research Testing Laboratory, has come out in favor of CIR, which is encouraging…
It went round and round all week whether Ariza was out of Pacquiao's camp, but the Wheel of Fortune landed on "out." We'll see if it sticks. Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach and Ariza have never gotten along, but Ariza has managed to overcome that for a long time…
This response to the protest of the fraudulent Malik Scott "knockout" — the scare quotes are appropriate for that one, anyway — is laughable. If that's your rule, BBBoC, that it's "nine and out," you need to change it because it's idiotic…
Angel Garcia, the trainer of his son, junior welterweight Danny Garcia, just can't stop being racist. His latest offense was to talk all "ching chong" about China. It makes it hard to root for his kid…
There is so much that doesn't make sense about the drug testing results for cruiserweight Guillermo Jones, as spelled out here. I'm not saying he didn't get legitimately popped, and my default is not to trust the excuses offered by fighters who are — but these are legitimately fishy circumstances…
At the HBO photo shoot/Dinner of Champions: junior featherweight Nonito Donaire, middleweight Gennady Golovkin, the like. Reportedly not: super middleweight champion Andre Ward, junior featherweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux. This has all been the subject of much speculation — was Rigo snubbed despite beating Donaire? Did Ward snub HBO because he's arrogant and entitled? — but I've not seen any actual reporting on why they weren't there. It does seem that Ward might have wanted to have been there as a top priority, and that Rigo would've been there if he was invited…
Super middleweight Edwin Rodriguez had reportedly been told by HBO that he'd only get back on the network if he faced Ward, although this story doesn't cite any sources at all. If it did happen, it sounds like too extreme a stance, and it could explain why Rodriguez had signed with Showtime-affiliated adviser Al Haymon…
Michael Katsidis is considering a farewell fight. He now claims his brain isn't fried. I hope he's telling the truth about being healthy, but he's not a fighter whose style lends itself to staying that way for very long, and if he's wrong then this is very dangerous….
It doesn't seem like welterweight Mike Jones likes his boxing career very much. And if he does, why hasn't he talked to anyone in the media in forever about his dispute with his promoter? (If no one has tried to call him — drop me a line, Mike!)…
Most excellent film director Ang Lee is reportedly turning his eye to boxing, in particular boxing matches from the 1960s and 1970s like the Thrilla in Manila, for a flick that would be shot in 3-D. I like most of Lee's films — I even enjoyed his "interesting failed experiment" with The Incredible Hulk — so it might even be worth the headache I get when sitting through 3-D movies.
