“Perhaps my best years are gone …But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn’t want them back.” Beckett

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His last good time in the ring took place over 25 years ago, February 24, 1989, in winter-strewn Atlantic City, whose glitzy neon lights had been dimmed by a snowstorm that nearly shut the Boardwalk down. Two decades after his pro debut, Roberto Durán, “Manos de Piedra,” some gray in his beard, was trying to win his fourth world title. Only Iran Barkley, a sullen brawler with a blunt nickname, “The Blade,” stood in his way. Continue reading ““I Don’t Remember When I Felt This Good”: The Night Roberto Duran Won His Fourth World Title” →

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Long before Roger Mayweather became famous for twelve-letter expletives and for discovering A-side Meth, he was a bold case study in hot-and-cold, up-and-down, and what-goes-around-comes-around. With a skull-and-crossbones stitched on his trunks and a right hand that could have doubled as a maul, Mayweather alternated upsides and downsides for the better part of the 1980s because of one simple detail: He owned a chin as fragile as a sparkleball. Continue reading “Snakebite: Roger Mayweather in the 1980s” →