No Holds Barred: The Fight Against Boxing Misinformation and Disinformation

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman discusses the misinformation in the boxing media about this coming Saturday's PBC on ESPN Thurman-Collazo card; the idiotic over-reporting in the mainstream media about what should have been a footnote with laughter on one of the alphabet soup groups stripping Floyd Mayweather of its belt; the failure of much of the boxing media to notice that this past Saturday's Jamie Conlan-Junior Granados battle in Dublin was a thrilling fight of the year candidate; and more.

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The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

American Top Team. Whether you're a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at AmericanTopTeam.com.

Defense Soap, an effective, deep penetrating body soap with natural antifungal, antiviral, and antibacterial soap ingredients. Defense Soap is the best cleansing body soap for men and women athletes who are involved in contact sports such as MMA, wrestling, grappling, jiu-jitsu, and judo, to help their antifungal, anti-ringworm, anti-jock itch strategy. Check out their web site, at DefenseSoap.com.

No Holds Barred: Floyd Mayweather Conference Call

(Photo by Esther Lin/Showtime)

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman plays the media conference call recorded Wednesday, April 22, featuring Floyd Mayweather. The unbeaten Mayweather (47-0, 26 KOs) faces Manny Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs) in a welterweight title unification mega-fight Saturday, May 2, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. This fight, boxing's most anticipated in years, will be shown live in the U.S. on pay-per-view and televised all around the world, and is expected to shatter all records for revenue and viewership for any pay-per-view event.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link doesn't work, please try another.

No Holds Barred is also available on mobile phones and iPads through Stitcher.

Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

American Top Team. Whether you're a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at AmericanTopTeam.com.

Defense Soap, an effective, deep penetrating body soap with natural antifungal, antiviral, and antibacterial soap ingredients. Defense Soap is the best cleansing body soap for men and women athletes who are involved in contact sports such as MMA, wrestling, grappling, jiu-jitsu, and judo, to help their antifungal, anti-ringworm, anti-jock itch strategy. Check out their web site, at DefenseSoap.com.

No Holds Barred: Michael Marley on Manny Pacquiao Conference Call, Mayweather-Pacquiao, and the Media

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman spoke with veteran boxing journalist Michael Marley.

Marley, who currently writes for the Examiner.com, also tried to speak by asking a question on Monday's media conference call featuring Manny Pacquiao, trainer Freddie Roach, and promoter Bob Arum, to publicize the May 2 Mayweather-Pacquiao mega-fight. But just minutes into the call, and after apparent confusion and general disorganization on it, Arum abruptly ended the call, and only right after the call's operator announced that the first question would be from Michael Marley. Arum interrupted the operator with an expletive, and said they should "reorganize" and that the call should be rescheduled. So the call was stopped prematurely.

We spoke with Michael Marley by phone Monday shortly after this abbreviated conference call, which we also play on this show.

"I wasn't looking to make a scene or anything. I just had a question I have in mind which I think is a valid question," he said.

"I wanted to ask Manny Pacquiao how he could believe or think or say that he can knock out or stop Mayweather, because the fact is that, all due respect to Pacquiao, a great champion, he'll be fighting one of the greatest defensive fighters ever. And that's coupled with the fact that Manny hasn't knocked anybody out since November 14th of 2009, when he stopped Miguel Cotto in the 12th round."

We went on to discuss what might happen in the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight and why he expects that this will be the first of what will become a trilogy of fights.

We also discussed the reduction of free access for the media to cover and interview fighters compared with the past, how this has only hurt boxing, his many years of experience in working with promoter Don King and in the media, and much more.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link doesn't work, please try another.

No Holds Barred is also available on mobile phones and iPads through Stitcher.

Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

American Top Team. Whether you're a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at AmericanTopTeam.com.

Defense Soap, an effective, deep penetrating body soap with natural antifungal, antiviral, and antibacterial soap ingredients. Defense Soap is the best cleansing body soap for men and women athletes who are involved in contact sports such as MMA, wrestling, grappling, jiu-jitsu, and judo, to help their antifungal, anti-ringworm, anti-jock itch strategy. Check out their web site, at DefenseSoap.com.

No Holds Barred: Wallace Matthews on Boxing, Baseball, and the Media

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman spoke with longtime boxing and baseball journalist Wallace Matthews.

After being one of the most prominent and respected boxing writers for decades as well as covering other sports since 1983 as a reporter, columnist, radio host, and TV commentator for Newsday, the New York Post, the New York Sun, and ESPN New York 98.7 FM, he is now covering the New York Yankees for ESPNNewYork.com.

We spoke with him by phone Tuesday.

"It's kind of like I'm doing my career backwards, because most people start out doing a team beat like I'm doing now, and then move on to write a column. I kind of did it the opposite way. I did boxing for a long time and I wrote a general column for about 15 years, and now I'm a beat man for ESPNNewYork on the Yankees," he said.

"They are a very interesting team, a team that keeps you busy, because there's never any shortage of storylines. And a very, very different world from covering boxing, I must tell you."

But he added, "I wouldn't say that it's a world I prefer, I must tell you. I really enjoyed covering boxing. I think it was the best time in my life and the best time in my career. But it does have its own challenges, and I'm never bored, I'll tell you that much. I'm never bored covering the Yankees."

We discussed why he enjoys boxing so much and sees it as the greatest test for an athlete in any sport, the difference in the athletes in boxing and baseball, the lack of adequate safety precautions for boxers by the political appointees on state commissions, the risks of brain damage in boxing, the failure of much of the boxing and general sports media to address the problems in the sport, and why he would go back to covering boxing if he had the opportunity.

We also discussed baseball and the New York Yankees, including some of the issues around the Biogenesis doping scandal and Alex Rodriguez, why he does not like doing predictions of a team's chances before the season but has to do so anyway, the failure of much of the baseball and general sports media to address the problems in the sport, and much more.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link doesn't work, please try another.

No Holds Barred is also available on mobile phones and iPads through Stitcher.

Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

ONE Fighting Championship. ONE FC is Asia's largest and most prestigious mixed martial arts event. ONE FC features the best Asian fighters and has initiated the ONE Asia Partnership Network, which includes most of the major MMA promotions and MMA gyms in Asia. For more information, go to their web site, at ONEFC.com.

American Top Team. Whether you're a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at http://americantopteam.com/.

Knockout Reporting

All you need do is search for the words “Obama knockout Clinton” in Google, and you will get a plethora of news articles and headlines comparing tonight’s Democratic primaries to a boxing match. We get them from coast to coast, and in print and online.

The New York Times reports, “Spending Heavily, Obama Attempts Knockout Blow.” MSNBC.com titles an AP article, “Obama seeks knockout, Clinton bids for revival.” The Honolulu Advertiser writes, “Final punches thrown before fateful voting.” By the time you could list them all, the primaries would be over.

These are not merely the product of cliché-mad writers having to grind out headlines day after day. They not only reflect the reality that boxing can be seen as a microcosm of life. What they signify is that interest in fighting, in struggle, in battles, is as high as ever. We also know that the same cannot be said about the sport of boxing, at least in the regions that the media obsessed with these primaries operate.

Yet most of these media outlets make little or no attempt to recognize the connection of boxing to the rest of life from the other side, and cover this universally compelling sport. The New York Times, for example, on the same day they were writing about Obama’s attempted “knockout blow,” had absolutely nothing about the previous night’s fight of the year candidate between Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez. All the news, indeed.

Part of the blame, alas, has to lie with the way boxing positions itself. Besides weekly bombastic cons that every televised fight will be a great one, little is done to connect the sport to the rest of life, save in a few unimaginative areas like appealing to crude nationalism, sentimentalism about dying relatives, or just cheap trash talk borrowed from the fake pro “wrestling”.

What parades itself as the boxing media follows in kind. It does not take a sizable budget or expense account to ask fighters more than just how they plan to beat their opponent or who is next. This sport is obviously completely different from those where you hit or throw a ball. What does it mean to these athletes to hit each other and get hit in return in this sport? We rarely ever find out.

The drama inherent in such a sport is incomparable to any that can be produced in the non-combat sports, at least in my estimation. While the clock ticking down in an intense, close game, or a full count with the bases loaded and the score tied in the ninth inning, might be entertaining to some (and it is at times to me), the stakes in those sports are entirely different from that in sports like boxing. A batter may strike out, a receiver may drop a pass, or a basketball player may miss a free throw, but those are all in different galaxy from getting knocked out.

I, for one, wouldn’t mind all these politicians knocking each other out, for real. I would settle for writing and reporting of the sporting knockouts which had the equivalent depth that the sport itself does. For that, just like we cannot rely on the politicians for anything other than passing gas, we have to go beyond what our lame, established boxing media is doing and produce it ourselves.

NO HOLDS BARRED: Introducing The Boxing Standard

NO HOLDS BARRED on PodOmatic

On this edition of NO HOLDS BARRED, host Eddie Goldman is joined by our correspondent Charles Farrell to introduce the new online journal of boxing, The Boxing Standard. Eddie and Charles are also the editors of The Boxing Standard.

In a lengthy discussion, we explain why we aim to stir up the highly mediocre world of boxing journalism. Among the many topics raised is how the boxing media is missing the real story of the most important heavyweight fight in years, the title unification bout between IBF champ Wladimir Klitschko and WBO champ Sultan Ibragimov this Saturday, Feb. 23, at Madison Square Garden in New York.

To listen to NO HOLDS BARRED, click here and just press the play button on the player.

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The show is in MP3 format, so may take some time to download.

The NO HOLDS BARRED theme song is called "The Heist", by musician Ian Carpenter.

NO HOLDS BARRED is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

Art of War, the undisputed arena fighting championship, promoted by SUN Sports and Entertainment, producing world class mixed martial arts events. For more information, check out their web site, ArtOfWarLive.com.

IFL, the International Fight League, the world's first professional mixed martial arts league. Make sure to check out their regular TV shows on FSN (Fox Sports Net) in the U.S. and to check your local listings for dates and times. Check out the IFL web site, ifl.tv, for a listing of IFL live events and their TV schedule.

Gladiator Challenge, shaking up the mixed martial arts world since 1999, and now with 30 shows per year. For more news and info, check out their web site, GladiatorChallenge.com.

BJJMart.com, your premier source for all Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gear, videos, books, and much more.

Gladiator Magazine, for in-depth coverage of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, submission grappling, and MMA, as well as lifestyle articles on surfing, cars, movies, and more. Gladiator Magazine is available at any major bookstore and online at BJJMart.com or Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear.

FightBeat.com, for news, results, interviews, and free exclusive videos from the worlds of boxing and mixed martial arts.

Thanks, Eddie Goldman

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