Red Blood

Calla Kessler is a photojournalism intern at The Washington Post. In July, she photographed a boxing match held at the Sphinx Club in downtown Washington, where she spent most of the evening with the competitors of the red corner. There were 10 …

In the blue corner, you have the boxing purists who insist that the 'defensive genius' of Mayweather is too articulate a strategy for the 'wild and reckless' Manny Pacquiao to comprehend. In the red corner, you have the blood thirsty boxing aficionados…

Gennady Golovkin eagerly dips a spoon into the bowl of blood-red borscht before him, going to work on the soup with gusto while friends and fellow fighters chat all around him in a lively Russian restaurant. The Kazakh boxer who lives in Germany and…

There’s a sickening crack of bone on bone, a geyser of blood, then a slow-motion teeter to the canvas. The fight is over. Super Op runs to his opponent’s corner, eyes still full of red mist, and screams at the crowd. It’s a visceral, blood-curdling yell – the sound of victory.…