No Holds Barred: Tarver-Cunningham and the Trap of Trash Talk

(Photo of Steve Cunningham and Naazim Richardson from Ed Diller/DiBella, photo of Antonio Tarver courtesy of Showtime)

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman previews the fights between heavyweights Antonio Tarver and Steve Cunningham, and cruiserweights Marco Huck and Krysztof Glowacki, and discusses the odious trash talk which has accompanied the buildup for the Tarver-Cunningham fight.

In the main event of a card to be held on Friday, August 14, at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, the 46-year-old Antonio Tarver (31-6, 22 KOs), the former unified light heavyweight champion, will continue his improbable campaign to gain a heavyweight title as he faces the 39-year-old former cruiserweight world champion, Steve Cunningham (28-7, 13 KOs). In his last fight, in December 2014, Tarver scored a seventh-round knockout win over heavyweight contender Johnathon Banks. In March of this year, Cunningham lost a close and controversial decision to unbeaten heavyweight contender Vyacheslav Glazkov, a fight many thought Cunningham deserved to win.

While these two veteran fighters try to advance in the heavyweight rankings, the co-feature will have WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck (38-2-1, 26 KOs) defending his belt against unbeaten challenger Krysztof Glowacki (24-0, 15 KOs) of Poland. Huck, originally from Serbia and based in Germany, has only one loss in his career at cruiserweight: a 2007 TKO stoppage at the hands of Steve Cunningham.

This card, part of the Premier Boxing Champions series, will be shown live in the U.S. on Spike TV.

We spoke with Antonio Tarver, Steve Cunningham, Marco Huck, and Krysztof Glowacki on a recent acrimonious media conference call.

We also explain why the Tarver-Cunningham fight is important and interesting on its own merits, why resorting to trash talk only promotes negative values, why even from a business perspective the trash talk is bad for boxing and the Premier Boxing Champions series, and much more.

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