
GEORGE GROVES’S announcement calling time on his professional boxing career at the age of 30 is in keeping with a fighter whose career stands as a monument to a fierce independence of will, spirit and mind.
The Londoner and avid Chelsea fan can retire satisfied that he does so as one of the bravest, toughest, most skilled and eminently watchable practitioners of the noble art these islands have ever produced.
From his debut as a pro in 2008, Groves exuded the aura of a young man in boxing but not of boxing. In other words, he was never less than self-possessed, emitting a quiet, steely confidence that manifested in the aura of a fighter who seemed to exist on a different psychological and emotional plane than his peers.

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