Cliff Rold
427 articles · Hard Core Boxing
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Measured Against All Time: Manny Pacquiao
By Cliff Rold
A deep dive into the career of the leading name on the current Hall of Fame ballot On June 8, 2025, the International Boxing Hall of Fame will complete their annual weekend…
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Naoya Inoue Adds Accolades: Weekend Afterthoughts
By Cliff Rold
Naoya Inoue probably won’t be back in the ring until May. By then, he will have passed the ten-year anniversary of his first major title win, a knockout of Adrian Hernandez for…
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Naoya Inoue-Marlon Tapales: Stats & Stakes
By Cliff Rold
In 1976, the WBC brought back a division that only briefly and without much fanfare flared on the boxing scene in the early 1920s. In the space between bantamweight and featherweight, a…
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Tank-Garcia: What We Don’t Know is Part of The Fun
By Cliff Rold
Has there been a major event quite like Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia in recent memory? Hopes are high heading into this Saturday (Showtime/DAZN PPV, 8 PM EST) by those who count the chips…
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Upset Flavor a Busy Boxing Weekend: Afterthoughts
By Cliff Rold
2023 has been off to a great start but, if it’s been missing one thing so far, that thing is unpredictability. The chalk has been strong through the first quarter of the…
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The Other Half at 122 Returns
By Cliff Rold
Stephen Fulton defending his WBC and WBO Jr. featherweight titles against bantamweight kingpin Naoya Inoue was hotly anticipated for May and will still be hotly anticipated when it arrives in July after…
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Gesta Reminds a Career Can Retrack: Weekend Afterthoughts
By Cliff Rold
There was a time, and if it feels like a long time ago now it’s because it kind of is, but there was a time when Mercito Gesta was considered one of…
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Brandon Figueroa-Mark Magsayo: Stats and Stakes
By Cliff Rold
Boxing’s in-ring product is red hot right now. The biggest stars haven’t aligned yet, though we’re getting to some of those dates, but if one is just looking for entertaining violence then…
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Fury, Crawford Announcements Deflate Late-2022: Weekend Afterthoughts
By Cliff Rold
The first half of 2022 was one of the best six-month stretches for the sport of boxing in the 21st century. Boxing fans were treated to the consolidation of the lightweight and…
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Mark Magsayo-Rey Vargas: Stats & Stakes
By Cliff Rold
Sometimes, a title win is validation of a fighter’s placement in the upper echelon in their division. Sometimes, the conditions of the win leave the jury still out. There’s no real debate…
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Naoya Inoue-Nonito Donaire II: Stats & Stakes
By Cliff Rold
Can they do it again? While the result was little in doubt when the final bell sounded in 2019, what happened over the course of twelve rounds left an impression. Naoya Inoue…
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A New King (We Hope) and The Return of Canelo: May Preview
By Cliff Rold
Unification fever was everywhere in April with new partially unified titlists crowned at middleweight, welterweight, and Jr. lightweight on the men’s side and super middleweight and flyweight on the women’s. We’re not…
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Lomachenko, Donaire March On: Weekend Afterthoughts
By Cliff Rold
A pair of former champions highlighted the weekend, both picking up their second win in a row since a loss to a younger tiger in the sports ranks, both with an eye…
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Bantamweight Begins the Other December Showcase
By Cliff Rold
Much has been made, rightly, of the unofficial lightweight showcase wrapping up Saturday night in the battle between former lightweight titlists Vasyl Lomachenko and Richard Commey. So far, every fight has been…
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Davis, Haney, Lomachenko: Who is in Most Danger?
By Cliff Rold
Teofimo Lopez, coming off a career making win over Vasyl Lomachenko, was going to continue his march to superstardom last weekend, going through long delayed mandatory contender George Kambosos and on to…
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Manny Pacquiao-Yordenis Ugas: Stats and Stakes
By Cliff Rold
What’s the old song line about not getting what we want but still getting what we need? Despite the loss of Errol Spence-Manny Pacquiao, what fans needed on short notice was for…
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Pacquiao-Ugas: Less an Event, Still a Real Fight
By Cliff Rold
Disappointment was to be expected. It’s perfectly reasonable. Despite a year with plenty of thrills in the ring so far, boxing has fallen short when it comes to big events. Tyson Fury-Anthony…
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Jermell Charlo-Brian Castano: Stats and Stakes
By Cliff Rold
Assuming an eleventh-hour glove controversy doesn’t derail plans, and these controversies seldom do, sometime in the next twenty-four hours, we will have an answer to the most exciting question in boxing. Who…
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Nordine Oubaali-Nonito Donaire: Stats & Stakes
By Cliff Rold
Fourteen years is a long time for anything. To spend most of that time among the best in whatever weight class you are currently battling in, in boxing, is something to be…
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Errol Spence-Danny Garcia: Afterthoughts
By Cliff Rold
It had to be seen to find out. Coming off his auto accident in 2019, would Errol Spence still be Errol Spence? After twelve rounds, we had an answer. It may not…