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I love that Chris Eubanks Jr and Conor Benn paid homage to their fathers’ first fight by wearing comparable trunks in their epic clash last night in London.

See https://www.tumblr.com/10point-must/189140728294/smf-classics-vol-xvi-benn-eubank-rivalry

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Incredible performance from Daniel Dubois in an upset win over Anthony Joshua on 09.21.24 in front of 96,000 at Wembley. Great contrast as well, w Joshua clad in all white and Dubois in all black. Fly gloves for Dubois, Leone for Joshua. Note the subtle flair on the side panel of Joshua's trunks. My only objection is the size of Dubois' IBF patch, which - to be fair - is outside of his control.

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Jack Catterall wins by decision against Josh Taylor in Leeds on May 25th 2024. Catterall in a sequined black, red and gold look with RILEY (his daughter's name) across the waistband. Taylor with sequined black trunks and tartan side panels. Both men in Fly boxing gloves.

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Fury - Usyk 05.18.24

An amazing fight in Riyadh on Saturday between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury -- the former narrowly, but deservedly, taking the victory and surely vaulting himself into the conversation of greatest of all-time. A high level fight with some great looks and nice little details. Lets take a look:

Usyk went with his typical well-matched set of Ukraine colors. A great dot-point / beehive pattern, seen initially in his sweatsuit pre-fight:

A closer look at the trunks:

The design on the waistband is apparently an ancient Christian symbol.

The bee on the side of Usyk's trunks is the logo of a boxing "web3" app that was founded by Usyk himself. Logo below in yellow (from the website):

Note that the dot-points are actually beehive hexagons.

The back of Usyk's trunks featured the name Maria, the name of his newborn daughter:

Usyk wore matching Rival gloves with "UKRAINE" on one thumb and "CHAMPION" on the other:

He wore matching footwear with USYK and the bee logo:

Fury put up a great performance and had a good look himself:

He wore forest green and gold - with a bit of black, a common look for him, in a gladiator style trunks. His Paffin Sport gloves were a lighter (and mismatched) shade of green, as has been the case in many of his previous fights. He wore black and gold Nike footwear. A closer look:

You'll notice the waistband is black, as is the front flap of his gladiator trunks. The green has a great little pattern that played well off of the arena lights, glistening a bit depending on the angle.

His Paffin Sport Gloves with Gypsy King logo:

Black and gold Nikes:

Very strong looks from both men - and a historic fight.

Respect box!

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Canelo in a great black and aqua set in his win over Jaimie Mungia in Las Vegas last night.

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Instant Classic: Haney-Garcia 04.20.24

Ryan Garcia upset Devin Haney in Brooklyn on Saturday night - and count me as in the population of people who still do not understand what I witnessed. It was a stunning result, a great fight and good looks from both fighters. Lets break down the gear.

Haney had a look I appreciated -- it was both conservative while also pushing barriers -- even though on the whole I found it lacking in a couple of regards.

His entire look, save for his gloves was by Fear of God - Essentials, which is basically a collection of sweatpants and sweatshirts.

The entire look appeared to be made of traditional sweatpants/sweatshirt heavy cotton in a moss gray/green color.

The waistband even included a drawstring. The trunks were otherwise largely plain aside from the black bar logo across the front, ESSENTIALS FEAR OF GOD in small font along the front left leg, a couple of subtle logos on the back and a subtle HANEY across the back waistband.

It seems to me that in a 12 round fight - with the likelihood of heavy perspiration and the possibility of blood, that such material might get discolored (and heavy) as the fight wore on. Indeed, we saw some indications late that the material was absorbing sweat:

Haney's shoes were the most remarkable part of his look:

As noted here, these are Fear of God "Mock Knit High" designed by Dominic Chambrone. How much structure is under this is anyone's guess. Matched well at least.

Haney's gloves were a slightly incongruous silver:

These appear to be TSDK Customs collaboration with Everlast.

The negatives overall for Haney here were the gray/moss color (which I found a bit dull) and the trunk material (which, while interesting, I think is likely a net negative for a prize fight). However I like Devin's fashion forward approach and the thoughtfulness that he seems to put into his gear.

Ryan Garcia had a very clean look that I thought worked very well. He wore a look styled by Emporio Armani's EA7 line (aside from his shoes and gloves).

Great EA7 robe (and can't forget the supposedly $1M crown). The robe matched his trunks:

A great vector tribal arrow pattern in white and black, with KING along the front waistband and RYAN along the back waistband. The trunks have no other distractions aside from an EA7 logo on the lower left leg.

A bit of trunk detail will show that the tribal arrows are actually dot-point:

He wore white Rival gloves:

....and blue and black Nike footwear (note sure why these didn't maintain the color theme of the rest of the look, but coincidentally matched a bit with his blue corner tape):

Overall a great fight with memorable looks, and outstanding efforts by both fighters.

Respect box.

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A FOTY candidate - and great looks from both Raymond Ford and Otabek Kholmatov on March 2 in Verona NY. Ray Ford (who we featured back in December of 2019) pulled off a dramatic 12th round stoppage to win the WBA featherweight belt. He wore black sequined trunks with red snakeskin side paneling and yellow gold fringe. He had matching footwear and red and gold Everlast gloves. Great look. Kholmatov had a great performance in a losing effort - and had a clean white and red look, with red Grant gloves. Respect box.

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Good looks from the heavyweights in Riyadh on December 23rd. Anthony Joshua wore his traditional white underarmour trunks, with a change to Leone gloves. Wallin wore a black, blue and gold set, similar to the set he wore against Tyson Fury with everlast gloves.

Deontay Wilder, in a losing and uninspired effort, nonetheless looked great I thought -- in a black and bronze gladiator set with glimmering sequins. Wilder paired it with matching Grant gloves and black socks and footwear. Joseph Parker scored probably the biggest win of his career in a burgundy and gold gladiator with some fringe. He wore matching Paffin gloves.

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David Benavidez in a great vertical stripe set for his win last night over Demetrius Andrade in Las Vegas

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Astonishing full-length David Bowie - style robe from Kenshiro Teraji in his win over Hekkie Budler in Tokyo on September 18th.

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Two fights in Manchester between Chris Eubank Jr and Liam Smith - two opposite results. Smith went with near identical templates (black and pink in the first followed by royal blue and gold in the second), Eubank opted for a totally different look in the second fight as he sought (and got) his revenge. Everlast shoes and gloves for Smith in both fights, Nike shoes and Winning gloves for Eubank.

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Spence - Crawford 07.29.23

Wow. Terence Crawford delivered a performance on Saturday night that will go down as one of the elite performances in boxing history, and confirmed that Crawford is among the very best ever. Errol Spence Jr was brave but had no answers for Crawford’s tool set. But here’s whats really important - the gear was great too. Crawford may have had a top 5 set ever for me, given context.

Lets start with Crawford:

He wore a black, gray and white look with a fishing net (actual fishing net, not merely a pattern). The fishing net was a reference to Spence’s “Big Shark” / “Big Fish” marketing campaign.

The netting was draped over his ring robe and was also angled across his trunks (more on this in a moment). Crawford’s trunks were otherwise black with gray and white piping along the bottom.

As referenced above, they key design piece of these trunks is fishing net over the gray angular panel that stretched from the back of the right side of the trunks around to the front, ending around the top of Crawford’s left leg. Closer inspection confirms that this was netting pattern was indeed loose fishing net:

The fishing net was risky but it was executed very well and in my opinion turns a solid look into an outstanding look that was well suited for a huge fight and historic performance. He had a couple of ads on the front of his trunks and a bedazzled CRAWFORD (in the same font as his previous fight) across the front and OMAHA across the back.

Bud wore gray Everlast gloves with his TC logo on the back of the hand.

He wore matching Everlast shoes with some netting on the inside.

Just a perfectly executed look for a big fight.

I have to give credit to Errol Spence Jr, not just for his brave performance and no-excuses post-fight behavior, but also because he delivered a pretty good look himself. He wore a white-black and red look, featuring his nickname “The Truth.”

His sleeveless warmup previewed the biker-jacket style lace-up pattern on the black leather portion of his trunks (see shoulder above and trunk side panels).

The front of Spence’s trunks were white with black leather laced trunk side panels, red trim along the bottom and a red waistband with “TRUTH” across the front. Notice that the “T”s are actually lower case. Wondering if these are religious references or just a design choice. In any case - I thought there were great trunks:

A bit of trunk detail:

Great design, nice subtle touches, burst of color on the waistband If I had a gripe it was that the back of Spence’s trunks were entirely black and the red waistband was marred by a huge white advertisement:

Not a huge deal, but it created a noticeably different visual impact depending on camera angle. When Spence was facing the cameras, we saw Spence’s clean, well crafted front-of-the-trunks look (which, by the way, also created a very pleasing contrast between his trunks and Crawford’s):

But when Spence had his back to the cameras, it looked like a completely different fight, with Spence’s less interesting back-of-trunks look (and, not a very pleasing contrast, as it appeared to be two sets of black trunks):

Overall, not a huge gripe.... a very good effort from Spence here and her seems to have moved on from his fur and neon phase (hopefully).

Spence had white Everlast gloves with red lettering and “the truth” along the back (this time entirely lowercase, unlike the waistband). I love the choice

He wore matching white Everlast shoes with red and black trim and “the truth” written on the inside arch.

Overall, excellent looks from both men and a pleasing contrast between fighters for this historic match.

Respect box.

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Spence - Crawford Preview: Terence Crawford Last 5

As with Spence, I’ve covered Bud Crawford extensively over the years - so this will be an abridged Last 5.

Bud beat Amir Khan by stoppage in April of 2019 in New York City.

The look was almost good -- but I had a couple of critiques. Full review of this fight here.

Returning to Madison Square Garden in December 2019, Terence weathered a brief scare from Egidijus Kavaliauskas before stopping him in the 9th.

Simple clean look here, black trunks with red and white trim, matching Everlast footwear and matching Everlast gloves. Brief reference here.

In November of 2020, Bud stopped a game Kell Brook in Las Vegas. Incredible sets from both fighters - just ideal.

Clean, color-coordinated and with just a slight unique flair along the bottom trim of the trunks. What a delight. Full review of this fight (including Kell’s great look) here.

In November 2021, Bud stopped Shawn Porter in Las Vegas in a very good, if slightly cluttered, white and black look:

Full review of this fight here.

A slightly different look from Terence his last time out -- a knockout of David Avanesyan in Omaha:

Some fringe, faux leather, a different color combination and a new font across the waistband here from Bud. He stayed consistent with his Everlast footwear and gloves.

If you want even more Bud - here’s a last 5 covering 2016 - 2018; here’s a review of his Hank Lundy fight; and here’s a last 5 dating back to his first world title fight in 2014.

We’re getting close to fight time!

Respect box.

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Inoue - Fulton 07.25.23

An electric scene in Tokyo as Nayoa Inoue sent a message to the boxing world with an 8th round stoppage of a game and brave - but outmatched - Stephen Fulton.

I liked both guys looks - but worth highlighting that there was a lot of black....with both guys in black trunks, black gloves and black shoes  -  and the fight taking place atop a black canvas -- there was a definitive midnight feel to the entire fight.

Nayoa entered the ring in a Mizuno hooded robe in black and sequined blue, matching his trunks.

As mentioned, he wore black Mizuno trunks with blue sequins along the side panels and white trim & lettering.

I honestly have no idea what brand his gloves were -- does anyone know? In any event, they were black with an overlapping N I logo, without any sort of visible brand logo.

He added matching Mizuno footwear:

CoolBoySteph had a black set with tasteful bursts of pink, green and yellow neon - along with a subtle motorcycle racing theme. He entered the ring wearing a motorcycle jacket, which I liked:

His trunks were black with SCOOTER (his secondary nickname) in hot pink along the waistband, and subtle raised patches along the front thighs, reminiscent of motorcycle racing gear:

They appear to be made by a brand called Foreign Clothing. Extra credit to CoolBoySteph for the Satoshi Nakamoto patch. He wore black Grant gloves with hot pink and neon green coloring on his CBS logo and on the thumbs.

He wore black Nikes with a small (but incongruous) bronze strap. Interesting that he laced up his right shoe with neon yellow laces but his left foot with black laces:

Incredible performance by Naoya Inoue, and respect to Stephen Fulton for putting himself on the line when so many in boxing are afraid to.

Respect box.

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Spence - Crawford Preview: Errol Spence Jr Last 5

Errol Spence fights Terence Crawford in Las Vegas on July 29th --- a fight I’ve been hoping for for years. We’ll do an abridged last 5 for each of them, since they’ve been covered pretty extensively here over the years. Today we’ll look at Errol Spence Jr, a fighter I really like, but who’s gear has gone from good to good and terrible over the past few years. Weird amounts of fur, incongruous color combinations etc.

Things were less crazy back in June of 2018 when he beat Carlos Ocampo in Dallas:

A full Dallas Cowboys set with black adidas shoes and Everlast gloves. Referenced here in a previous Spence last 5, in case you want to look back all the way to 2016.

He beat Mikey Garcia in Dallas in March of 2019 wearing sort of a distressed white and gold look:

It was a terrible fight, so I covered it only very briefly here.

In September of 2019 Spence beat Shawn Porter by decision in Los Angeles wearing a nice black and snakeskin set:

Zero complaints with this look from Spence. Full review of this fight here.

Spence had his car accident shortly after this fight, and recovered for 15 months before fighting Danny Garcia in Dallas in December 2020:

This is when things started getting a little weird. Spence was consistent with his use of Everlast gloves and Adidas shoes -- but suddenly there was lots of neon, fur and clashing materials. Full review of this fight here, warning to those who are photosensitive.

 In April of 2022 Spence fought again after a lengthy layoff (largely due to a retina injury) -- brutally stopping Yordenis Ugas in 10 rounds in Dallas.

Obviously, Spence is slowly becoming Matthew Lesko. Or maybe The Joker? Anyway - full review of this fight here. 

July 29th is coming up fast.

Respect box.

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Inoue - Fulton: Naoya Inoue Last 5

This will be an abridged Last 5 for Naoya Inoue, since we’ve covered several of these fights previously.

In October of 2020, Inoue dominated Jason Moloney in Las Vegas in a gold and black look, w Winning gloves and Mizuno trunks and shoes, covered briefly here.

In June of 2021, Inoue battered Michael Dasmarinas in Las Vegas in a black white and gold look, w Grant gloves and Mizuno trunks and shoes:

I’m still confused about what AAA means across his trunks.

6 months later the Monster stopped Aran Dipaen in Tokyo sporting a different color scheme (covered briefly here):

In June of 2022 he won the rematch with Nonito Donaire (after a legendary first fight covered here) in dominant fashion in Saitama w a TKO-2. The rematch received a full SMF review, which can be found here.

Note the Cleto Reyes gloves here -- this is Naoya’s 3rd different brand of gloves in four fights.

In December of 2022 Naoya stopped a game Paul Butler in Tokyo in the 11th round.

A black and yellow look here, heavily Mizuno and this time opting for what apparently were Safetec Cleto Reyes gloves.

Will be interesting to see what gloves Inoue chooses for his massive fight with Steven Fulton on July 25th.

Respect box.

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Inoue-Fulton: Stephen Fulton Last 5

Incredible fight week coming up at the end of July w Inoue-Fulton and Crawford-Spence happening w/in a few days of each other. To spread out the fun, we’ll start with the previews a bit ahead of time. Today I’ll have a look at Stephen Fulton’s last 5 looks.

CoolBoy beat Isaac Avelar in Edinburg, Texas (the fight capital of Hidalgo County) in August of 2019. He wore an interesting white, navy blue and brown trunks, with bronze Grant gloves and florescent yellow shoes. A bit of trunk detail below:

I like the color scheme (even if the random inclusion of brown is a bit Charlo-esque) and I like the CBS CoolBoy Steph logo. Shoes obviously a bit questionable.

In January of 2020 Fulton won a unanimous decision over Arnold Khegai in Brooklyn.

CoolBoy stayed consistent with the bright yellow footwear and Grant gloves. His trunks are interesting because the wording is largely on the back while the front contains only an oversized logo and a few patches.

Note the use of the 13 stars for the “O” in Fulton and “Boy” by the Philadelphia native -- a reference to the original 13 colonies and, more specifically, his hometown basketball team:

In January of 2021, Fulton returned to the ring in Uncasville, Connecticut, beating Angelo Leo by wide decision for the WBO super-bantamweight title.

An orange and black theme for Fulton -- impeccably matched trunks and gloves, along with some incongruous footwear:

Fulton’s trunks contained both a Black Lives Matter and an All Lives Matter graphic and text, and the back contained “I Cant Breathe” across the waistband, a reference to Eric Garner.

In November of 2021, Fulton faced his toughest test against Brandon Figueroa in Las Vegas, winning a close majority decision.

A Mexican theme from CoolBoy Steph (aka ChicoFresco Steph) - great look, matching shoes and Grant gloves.

In June of 2022, Fulton beat Daniel Roman in Minneapolis by wide scores.

Fascinating throwback Buccaneers creamsicle look -- light orange trunks, sherbet orange trim and inside flaps, a bit of white fringe along the side and a surprising mint green flap on the back of his trunks. He matched with light orange shoes and orange Grant gloves.

Can’t wait for July 25th in Tokyo!

Respect box.