Root and Stokes grind down weary India to stretch lead beyond 100
Boxing report card 2023: low marks for integrity, high marks for greed
Despite the gangsters and sportwashing, JOHN WIGHT find some hope for the sport in 2024
Deontay Wilder (left) and Joseph Parker during a press conference at OVO Arena, Wembley, London, November 15, 2023.
PROFESSIONAL boxing’s report card for the year 2023 is liberally covered in low marks for integrity, transparency, accountability, credibility and sustainability. Offsetting the low marks are high marks for greed, mendacity, and malevolence.
A story that appeared on the website of the Irish Sunday World newspaper on December 27 would in any other sport make news headlines everywhere, raising a veritable cri de coeur. But this is boxing — a sport, business and culture where anything goes.
The story revolves around an unredacted transcript of a California court hearing which took place in August this year. It took place as part of an ongoing legal battle against Irish mobster Daniel Kinahan over his now defunct management company MTK’s alleged attempt to illegally poach US fighter Jojo Diaz from boxing manager Moses Heredia.
More from this author
Mary Kom’s fists made history in the boxing world. Malak Mesleh’s never got the chance. One story ends in glory, the other in grief — but both highlight the defiance of women who dare to fight, writes JOHN WIGHT
The Khelif gender row shows no sign of being resolved to the satisfaction of anyone involved anytime soon, says boxing writer JOHN WIGHT
When Patterson and Liston met in the ring in 1962, it was more than a title bout — it was a collision of two black archetypes shaped by white America’s fears and fantasies, writes JOHN WIGHT
In the land of white supremacy, colonialism and the foul legacy of the KKK, JOHN WIGHT knows that to resist the fascism unleashed by Trump is to do God’s work
