Who I am
I've been around boxing gyms since I was twelve. I held pads through my twenties, cornered amateurs through my thirties, and figured out somewhere in there that I was a better watcher than I was a fighter. That's not a small admission. Most guys who hang it up never make it. They keep telling themselves they had a shot.
I worked as a regional analyst for a small fight publication for about eight years — covering the Upper Midwest circuit, club shows in converted VFW halls and county-fair arenas, the occasional televised undercard when the TV truck rolled through Duluth or the Twin Cities. The publication folded. The work didn't. iFights is what came after — a place to put the notes that used to go into a print column nobody under forty was reading.
What this site is
It's a blog. That's it. Long-form posts, written by a person, about fights that have already happened. Occasionally about training. Occasionally about the business of the sport. Never about who I think will win on Saturday, because I have been wrong enough times to know better.
What this site is not
It is not a tip sheet. It is not a betting service. It is not a fan account. I do not run a podcast. I do not film myself reacting to press conferences. There is no merch. There is no newsletter. If you want any of those things, the internet is generous and you will find them quickly.
The rules I write by
- If I haven't watched the tape at least twice, I don't have an opinion worth posting. Usually three times — once live, once at 0.5× for the hand work, once at 0.25× for the feet.
- If I'm wrong, I say so, in the next post, with my name on it. Corrections stay on the page they were wrong on. I don't quietly edit and pretend.
- If a fighter, trainer, or promoter doesn't like what I wrote, they're welcome to call me directly. They generally have my number. They generally don't call.
- I don't write about a fighter's personal life unless it walked into the ring with them.
- I don't take advertising. I don't take sponsorships. I don't take free fight tickets I haven't paid for through normal channels.
- Scorecards I post are the cards I filled out in the moment, not the cards I'd have liked to fill out after the fact.
The setup
For anyone who cares about the mechanical side of how this gets done: I work from a chipped oak desk in a finished basement. Two monitors — one for the broadcast feed, one for the notebook. A yellow legal pad next to the keyboard for the live card. A pair of timing buttons I soldered together myself that let me mark jab/cross/hook/uppercut without taking my eyes off the screen. The buttons log to a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is not interesting. The fights are.
I rewatch on a twelve-year-old plasma because it doesn't add motion smoothing, and motion smoothing is a liar. If the broadcast has 60 fps available I'll use it for footwork passes. Otherwise 30 fps, 0.25× playback, hand on the space bar.
Working with me
I take on a small amount of paid editorial and consulting work each year — fight-camp video review, scouting reports for managers, occasional ghostwriting for trainers who have a book in them but not the time to write it. Last year it was three scouting packages and one book proposal. The year before, two packages and one ghostwriting job that's still in progress. That's about the ceiling. If you've cornered with me, sparred with me, or put a card together I covered for the print column, you know how to find me. That list is the whole list.
Where I am
Based in the upper Midwest. Travel for the right cards — the state amateur finals every April, one or two regional pro shows each quarter, and whatever the Bluff City card runs in October if the matchmaker I trust is still running it. Otherwise at the desk, with the notebook, watching the same round for the fourth time.