NO HOLDS BARRED

(Photo: Tom Casino/Showtime)

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman has a wild and lengthy discussion with our correspondent Charles Farrell about the Rafael Marquez-Israel Vazquez and Yonnhy Perez- Abner Mares fights from Saturday, May 22, the decline of boxing and boxing writing, and much more.

The fourth fight between Rafael Marquez and Israel Vazquez ended in the third round when the referee ruled that the bloodied and blinded Vazquez could not continue. We discuss their historic trilogy of fights, where each fighter can go from here, and why there must not be a fifth fight. We also discuss the majority draw between Yonnhy Perez and Abner Mares, and how this could be the start of a series of fights between these two. We also discuss the obstacles facing fighters at lower weights such as Marquez and Vazquez, whose first fights were at super bantamweight and now at featherweight, and Perez and Mares, who are bantamweights. We also examine the long practice of boxing promoters and television networks of using nationalism and jingoism to promote fights.

Related to these problems are the general decline of boxing in America and the concurrent decline of boxing writing. We discuss this in relation to the offer by the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) to reinstate Eddie, and the history of that dispute. We also analyze in depth whether the BWAA dues of $40 might be better spent answering a personal ad on Craigslist. And we discuss issues like who is better, Vitali Klitschko or Nina Simone, and much, much more.

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The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", by Ian Carpenter.

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Labels: boxing, Charles Farrell, Eddie Goldman, Marquez, No Holds Barred, Vazquez