Jerry Izenberg
98 articles · The Star- Ledger
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Here’s why I predict Gennady Golovkin beats Canelo Alvarez | Triple G with a knockout
LAS VEGAS -- On Thursday, the odds for Saturday night's middleweight unification championship fight between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin dropped faster than a lead blintz. The fight had originally opened in…
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Canelo Alvarez on bout vs. Triple G: ‘This fight is personal for me’
LAS VEGAS -- Canelo Alvarez doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve. He wears it on the inside of his forearm in large block letters. The tattoo is a testimony to everything…
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Triple G vs. Canelo: Is this another middleweight bout for history?
LAS VEGAS -- The very matchup this Saturday between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin at the T Mobile Arena carries within it the echoes of glory. This isn't the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor…
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Ward vs. Kovalev 2: Simmering bad blood is coming to a boil
LAS VEGAS -- To understand the anger burning inside Sergey Kovalev, you have to reach back into his personal odyssey. In the beginning, there was a place in Russia called Chelyabinsk, one…
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Ward vs. Kovalev 2: Andre Ward promises to ‘take all doubt … off the table’
LAS VEGAS -- Historically, they have been the outcasts of boxing history. Heavyweights excite simply by their size and the notion of an impending explosion. Welterweights and middleweights move with speed and…
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A year later, looking back at how Muhammad Ali was remembered
A year after Muhammad Ali's death, here's a look back at how Star-Ledger Columnist Emeritus Jerry Izenberg remembered his friend. The people. With Muhammad Ali, it was always the people. It didn't…
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Sergey Kovalev: Give me a rematch and I will kick Andre Ward’s butt
LAS VEGAS ? Virgil Hunter, Andre Ward's trainer, summed it up before it even happened. Nostradamus wearing boxing shoes and a protective cup could not have foreseen it any clearer. Three days…
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Kovalev vs. Ward: Here’s how Saturday night’s title fight will play out
''We went into camp with the attitude 'Another fight, another win.'" -- Virgil Hunter, Andre Ward's trainer "If Sergey hits him flush, Ward will go down like a ton of bricks." --…
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Kovalev vs. Ward: Andre Ward says boxing fans soon will know his name
LAS VEGAS ? There was a night in 1977 when Larry Holmes was only seven months short of fighting for the heavyweight championship of the world. We were standing next to a…
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Kovalev vs. Ward: Sergey Kovalev loves America, but it didn’t exactly love him back
LAS VEGAS ? If Egis Klimas, a Russian fight manager, hadn't taken an amateur fighter named Sergey Kovalev to Kazakstan, Don Turner, a brilliant American trainer of fighters, never would have seen…
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Will there be a rematch with Floyd Mayweather? Manny Pacquiao gives his answer
LAS VEGAS ? It wasn't ruffles and flourishes. It wasn't thunder and lightning. It was more the metronome-like cadence of a battery of kettle drums ... the kind of steady boom, boom,…
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Does Jesse Vargas have a chance vs. Manny Pacquiao on Saturday night?
LAS VEGAS ? On Tuesday, the big board in the sports book at the Southpoint Hotel and Casino listed Manny Pacquiao as a 7-1 favorite over WBO welterweight champion Jesse Vargas in…
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Manny Pacquiao vs. Jesse Vargas: Can the ‘legend’ of Pacman be beaten?
LAS VEGAS ? From the time he was 8 or 9 years old, the gym had become his second home. He learned the basics from two of Floyd Mayweather's uncles, who alternately…
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Crawford vs. Postol: There’s a lot at stake, but is anyone noticing?
LAS VEGAS ? The other day, a regular at the South Point Hotel and Casino sports book asked the resident actuarial, Jimmy Vaccaro, when he planned to post odds on Saturday's junior…
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Crawford vs. Postol: Here’s why Freddie Roach believe Viktor Postol can win
LAS VEGAS ? It was the early autumn of 2014 when a man named Vadim Kornilov climbed the outside steps to Freddie Roach's Wild Card gym in Hollywood and opened the door…
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Crawford vs. Postol: For Terence Crawford, a gun shot was a wakeup call
"That, which does not kill us, makes us stronger." -- Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher LAS VEGAS ? He was sitting in his car under a street light in North Omaha, a 21-year…
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Muhammad Ali: Why they called him ‘The Greatest’ and why I called him my friend | Jerry Izenberg
The people. With Muhammad Ali, it was always the people. It didn't matter whether they were rich or poor, black or white, celebrity-famous, blue-collar weary or welfare poor. It didn't matter what…
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Why you shouldn’t bet against a Mayweather-Pacquiao rematch
LAS VEGAS ? This is the way Manny Pacquiao began his last goodbye. He was wearing the colors of the Philippines flag, and as he came out of the darkness of the…
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Pacquiao vs. Bradley: Will Manny make that fatal mistake?
"Overall, I think that if Bradley does what he did the other day versus [Rios] ? if Bradley fights the way my son did, Pacquiao doesn't have a chance. Move and hit…
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Pacquiao vs. Bradley: Is Manny really quitting? His fans don’t want to believe it
LAS VEGAS -- Manny Pacquiao indicates his fight Saturday night with Tim Bradley will be his last hurrah. There are 65,000 Filipinos or Filipino-Americans living and working here in America's Gomorrah in…