Boxing is a mess. Whether it’s warring promoters, Mad Max levels of oversight or Ponzi-by-numbers business models, the sport too often can’t stay out of its own stupid way. Yet every now and then, a thing of beauty is fished out of the bog – a selfless act, a genius tactic or just a moment worth sharing. I hope to find and highlight them in this space weekly. (C’mon, boxing, three a week ain’t too much to ask!) Got an idea or tip of your own? Feel free to send it my way, and I’ll be sure to give you a nod if it’s used.

  1. A French leader with a Rocky complex

It’s a well-known fact that 98.7 percent of titillating black-and-white glamor photos are sourced from France, so literally no one should be surprised by the recent post to the Instagram account of French president Emmanuel Macron.

Tastefully styled and seemingly staged in the lobby of a Versailles Panera Bread, show Macron in a snug-fitting black T giving hell to a heavy bag. Critics blasted Macron for trading in the same sort of and as a certain Russian despot: “These virilist codes used to the point of overdose,” EELV parliament member Sandrine Rousseau on ex-Twitter. “What misery of politics. What a defeat for progressivism. And what poverty of political communication.”

Me? I had other takeaways:

– Lookit those guns! Macron is straight jacked, baby! The world wants to know, monsieur, how a busy, 46-year-old man about the globe keeps it so tight! Do you also get after the speed bag? Put in sparring rounds? Is a HIIT regimen or CrossFit involved? Macron doesn’t strike me as an Ozempic guy, so I’m guessing he’d sail through the Nevada Boxing Commission’s stringent drug-testing protocols.

– Upon close inspection, it’s clear our boy Manny is Nair-ing from the elbows up. But no judgment! I’m not here to fur-shame. Take it from one who knows, mon ami: the struggle is real.

– Look, France needs this. Unless you’re inclined to confer French birthright to Christian Mbilli, the last French fighter of note was, what … Jean-Marc Mormeck? Have a heart. And besides, these cats riot at the drop of a hat. Just give them their Macron-as-boudoir-pugilist pics and move on.

  1. It’s Al coming back to us now

When the news broke last week that former Showtime Championship Boxing talent Brian Custer and Mauro Ranallo would be joining Amazon Prime Video’s new broadcast team, my thoughts immediately turned to another longtime fixture on Showtime’s fight broadcasts: Al Bernstein.

One of boxing’s elite on-air talents dating back decades, Bernstein also happens to be a truly nice guy in a business that doesn’t harbor many. When Showtime shut down its boxing arm in December, after investing 37 years in the sport, it felt like the last tie to a particular era – when Bernstein and HBO’s Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant were arguably the most familiar and important voices in boxing – had been cut.

Thankfully, that’s not the case. Bernstein, 73, on Saturday via social media that he will return to the boxing broadcast booth this coming Saturday in Bulgaria, for a fight featuring heavyweight titleholder Mahamoud Charr to be streamed on DAZN. Charr had been lined up to face Kubrat Pulev, but the latter pulled out of the fight. (Pulev reportedly will be replaced by Igor Shevadutskyi.)

No matter. If we’re being honest, that fight will serve as the undercard to the main event: Bernstein’s return to on-air boxing analysis. As bummed as many fans will be to learn that he won’t be joining his old Showtime teammates on Prime, Bernstein says they’ll have plenty of chances to catch up with him – and in a variety of ways. On Sunday, Bernstein told BoxingScene that, in addition to writing his Ring Magazine column, pursuing possibilities around and starting a sequel to , he has been actively exploring and negotiating new opportunities since Showtime’s shutdown.

“I'm definitely not retiring!” Bernstein said. “Because I enjoy doing everything, and I'm definitely gonna be on the air this year and I will have a number of different projects.

“I am expecting to be active in broadcasting moving forward, and I expect to have more information about that within the next few weeks.”

  1. Nobody ever wins a fight – or a boxing movie

I know I’m late to the party/swamp kegger, but this week was my first glimpse of the new-ish . Now, I have plenty to say on the subject – “Why can’t we have nice things?” for starters – but this space is devoted to lifting up, not tearing down. (The therapist who fired me as a client would call this “growth.”)

Anyhow, I often rant privately about how badly Hollywood screws up boxing films (trailed only by the stupendous lengths the industry goes toward bungling basketball movies – but let’s not get sidetracked). There are some exceptions, of course, and the recent “Creed” series – especially the that features Gabe Rosado fighting Michael B. Jordan’s Donnie – has been pretty good to us lately.

But Jake Gyllenhaal’s turn as Dalton got me thinking about a boxing movie that, I believe, kind of slipped under the radar for a lot of fight fans: “Southpaw.” At the risk of fully engaging Robert Ebert mode, I’ll just say the 2015 film, directed by Antoine Fuqua, has a pretty believable and well-paced narrative, action that earns a solid B+ (a nice hybrid of the most cartoonish-yet-fun stuff in “Rocky” and a more modern action sensibility) and quality performances from Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams and Forest Whitaker. And Fuqua really knows his way around an action flick. Give it a whirl if you haven’t already.

In the meantime, until I learn that the new “Road House” features either a) the return of Sam Elliot as resurrected Wade Garrett or b) Conor McGregor getting throat-removal treatment from Gyllenhaal, I’ll be boycotting, thank you very much.