Sean Nam

3 weeks ago | thebaffler.com | Petra Browne |Sean Nam |Declan Ryan

Sham prizefighting goes by many names these days—crossover boxing, celebrity boxing, influencer boxing—but it’s been around a long time. In the 1940s, a retired Jack Dempsey, folk hero of the Roaring Twenties, struck a path on the comeback trail by taking on a string of wrestlers. In 1975, George Foreman traveled to Toronto to flatten five tomato cans, one after the other, in a single night, in a bid to restore his confidence after Muhammad Ali had shattered it in Zaire.

3 weeks ago | thebaffler.com | Sean Nam |David Hill |Abe Beame

In the pre-dawn hours one Monday morning following the 2007 NBA All-Star Game, a fight broke out at Minxx Gentleman’s Club & Lounge on Wynn Road in Las Vegas. A patron had been throwing cash all over the club from a garbage bag full of bills. A brawl ensued, and the man with the bag of money was tossed from the club by two men, a bouncer and club manager Tommy Urbanski. Outside of the club, shots rang out. Hit four times, Urbanski survived but was paralyzed from the waist down.

Dec 26, 2024 | thebaffler.com | Sean Nam

Word Factory W o r dF a c t o r y When the French crime film Classe tous risques—the English title, The Big Risk, fails to capture the pun on insurance policies and travel accommodations—premiered in Paris in March 1960, it was undercut by no less a modern heretic than Jean-Luc Godard, whose Breathless had premiered only a week before. Both films starred Jean-Paul Belmondo, an ex-boxer whose hardscrabble looks were belied by his soft pout.

May 3, 2024 | sundaylongread.com | Sean Nam

On a Saturday night in New York City in December 2021, months before Vladimir Putin sent tanks and missiles and thousands of soldiers to try to cut the heart out of Ukraine, a boxing instructor named Liubomyr saw something that made him worry for his home country.

Feb 15, 2024 | newsbreak.com | Sean Nam

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