Greetings, friends. But sad greetings. [Well, mostly sad. Read on for the good news after the bad.] You might have noticed the amount of “content” (ugh) on The Queensberry Rules declining over time, especially in 2022. There are a buncha reasons for it, but the final nail in the coffin is that your proprietor has himself a new job that has rendered continuing in any capacity impossible. So, TQBR is closing down shop. It’s been a terrific ride. And, in at least one sense, it’s set to continue on. Matthew Swain, our terrific deputy editor, is hanging his own shingle: https://theliverpunch.com ..read more

There are era-defining fights and fighters. When boxing is at its best, you get a handful of them in the same weight class at the same time, and in a perfect world they all fight each other. Going back nearly a decade, we got just that with the ascendance of all time great Roman “Chocolatitio” Gonzalez. In the process of cleaning out flyweight, Gonzalez met and defeated a young Juan Francisco Estrada in a wonderfully technical 2012 action fight. Not long after, three pounds north at junior bantamweight, Carlos Cuadras and Srisaket Sor Rungvisai fought to a technical decision. An informal round ..read more

While George Kambosos Jr. brought the fans to the fight, Devin Haney almost immediately took them out of it. On a brisk Sunday afternoon, nearly 42,000 fans packed into Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium to watch Kambosos (20-1, 10 KO) make the first defense of the lightweight titles he lifted from Teofimo Lopez last November. What they, and Kambosos, got was a boxing lesson of the highest order. The fight may have failed to live up to the hype of the contentious buildup, but that’s usually the case when the gulf of talent between the two combatants is this wide. Haney (28-0, 15 KO) traveled across th ..read more

Let us consider the matter of Gervonta Davis’ career, as it sits at a particular kind of crossroad: The kind where he can continue to tread water in relative safety, or takes the foundations of superstardom and builds upon them. They key word in the above sentence is “relative,” because Rolando Romero is not, as he demonstrated Saturday night on Showtime Pay-Per-View even in a loss to Davis, a safe opponent for much of anybody. Yes, his career didn’t have much to go on through 14 fights, but his power appeared real — Davis fought him like it was, anyway — and he proved himself, for the most pa ..read more

Super-middleweight contender David Lemieux may be approaching his last shot at a world title. The Quebec native will take on David Benavidez on a Showtime televised card in Glendale, Arizona on May 21 for the interim WBC title, with a potential shot at Canelo Alvarez at stake. Canelo was recently upset by light-heavyweight titlist Dmitrii Bivol and he hasn’t yet stated if he will remain at 175 or return to defend his titles at 168. But regardless of Canelo’s decision, the winner of Lemieux-Benavidez will be one step closer to holding a world title. At 33 years old and with close to 50 fights ..read more

How should we remember John Tate? We could argue all day about how much control we have over the paths that our lives take, but one thing that we have little control of, is how people choose to remember us. Take Big John Tate, for example. Two boxing fans are chatting away in a bar… “What about that 1976 U.S. Olympic team, eh?” “Yeah, what a team! ‘Sugar’ Ray Leonard! One of the greatest ever!” “But there were plenty of others too…” “I know. Howard Davis. Voted best boxer at the Games. Tremendous skill set.” “What about the heavyweight?” “You mean ‘Neon’ Leon Spinks? Gold medallist light heavy ..read more

Christy Martin punched like hellfire but looked like a Dollar General assistant manager. Laila Ali was a lovely scrapper with a world-class pedigree — but was she an all-timer or a paper tiger? Today, Ebanie Bridges leans into her looks with top-heavy gusto, and “The Blonde Bomber” is eviscerated on social media — almost exclusively by men, it should be noted — for failing to somehow simultaneously embody the elemental qualities of both Gal Gadot and Sugar Ray Robinson. It’s been the plight of women boxers for … well, for as long as women have boxed: fight like a man, flirt like a woman. Be au ..read more

Shakur Stevenson continues to impress and exceed the lofty expectations placed on him. Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, the Newark resident thoroughly dominated Oscar Valdez by unanimous decision to hand the Mexican native his first loss.  Throughout the 12 rounds, Stevenson was in command and never remotely troubled by Valdez. With such an impressive showing against his best opponent to date, Stevenson is building momentum and making his case for entrance into the top 10 pound-for-pound list. His latest victory comes after his breakout performance in October when he complete ..read more

Every fighter, regardless of skill or stature, will one day throw their final punch. If Tyson Fury has indeed thrown his, one couldn’t ask for a better walk-off shot than the uppercut he landed to close the show this past Saturday night, nor a more satisfying target than Dillian Whyte’s giant planet-sized head. Here’s the thing though; Fury is not retiring. Not from boxing, not from anything. Don’t get me wrong, I know he says he is, but you can generally parallel park an oil tanker in the gulf between what Fury says he’s going to do and what he ultimately does. Fury is, if nothing else, a bor ..read more

It’s the kind of moment you want to see how a truly elite fighter handles: In the 6th round of his welterweight battle with Yordenis Ugas Saturday night, Errol Spence Jr. finally got rattled. It was a situation he gift-wrapped for Ugas, which is, certainly, a bit incriminating. With his mouthpiece knocked out, Spence just started ignoring Ugas in some kind of ill-considered gesture toward recovering said mouthpiece, whereupon Ugas whacked him a few more times, bouncing Spence off the ropes. And wouldn’t you know it, after the fuck-up, he handled himself like a boss. In the very next round, Spe ..read more