So it has happened again. Tyson Fury is on the wrong end of the injury stick once again after seeing his mega domestic bout with David Haye cancelled twice and his slightly less mega domestic bout with Derek Chisora cancelled this week due to a hand injury to the rejuvenated Del Boy. Chisora is enjoying a bit of resurgence since being knocked out by David Haye. He has looked in very good shape recently and won 5 fights on the …
Guillermo Rigondeaux smashed pound for pound superstar Nonito Donaire over a year ago now and his career has simply stalled. Major networks don’t want to touch him with a barge pole and Bob Arum was pretty disparaging about him despite promoting the guy. Poor Rigo. The guy is so talented it is costing him. After struggling to get a decent bout for a year he took on Joseph Agbeko and snoozed to a 12 round victory. It seemed to get worse. …
Gennady Golovkin is at the moment best priced as a 12-1 favourite to beat Daniel Geale when the pair of 160 pounders face off in just over 10 days at Madison Square Garden, New York. Now I want to try to break this down bit by bit. Firstly, Gennady Golovkin may be more hype than actual talent but looking at the top 10 rates fighters, he is the only one to have destroyed someone in the rankings. Relative performances indicate …
15th October 2011, Liverpool England, Tony Bellew vs Nathan Cleverly. Cleverly boxes a little neater and comes away with a thin decision victory. Bellew cries, Cleverly celebrates. When they rematch later this year it will have been three years since they first took each other on in a tense and tight affair that saw Cleverly eke out a close decision to give Bellew his first defeat and reclaim the WBO light-heavyweight title. On that night there was little to split …
Tony Bellew and Nathan Cleverly Rivalry Explored Read More »
Wow. What a weekend. No, not Germany winning the world cup! How about a split decision in the super fight of the weekend and ageing star being knocked out in 3 rounds and a British weekend of boxing that saw two stars almost fight each other for a second time outside of the ring. Okay, let’s take a breather. It should be worth noting that good old Mauricio Herrera, who didn’t get the nod against Danny Garcia back in March, …
So this weekend the best 154 pound fighters take on each other in the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is hard to make out any kind of clear favourite for the fight where Lara is seen as the superior fighter in terms of skill whereas Canelo has improved with each fight and is seen as being the more powerful and physical. Frankly I think this fight comes down to Erislandy Lara being a bit overrated and …
Shawn Porter and Kell Brook will fight for Porter’s welterweight title on August 16 and it will be the fight of the year. Porter and Brook had always threatened to make a name for themselves at welterweight for a few years but they struggled to get the big fights. Brook had trouble securing a bout with Devon Alexander for a long time and Porter was the one who took on Alexander back in December last year. Porter was dominant and …
Shawn Porter vs Kell Brook will be fight of the year! Read More »
Terence Crawford retained his WBO title last weekend with an impressive TKO over the previously undefeated Yuriorkis Gamboa and it now seems like the sky is the limit for Crawford. One thing that has been evident so far in his recent victories over fighters at world level has been the ease with which he has done it. We should have known we had something special as early as March 2013. He took a fight with Breidis Prescott on two weeks’ …
Ricky Burns tenuous links to world level boxing seems to have finally slipped away after losing a 12 round decision in his home town to previously unheralded Montenegrin Dejan Zlaticanin. The tale of the fight was pretty much summed up in the first 15 seconds of the bout as Zlaticanin landed a swift left hook that floored Burns. To his credit Burns made a bout of it but always looked second best. Zlaticanin walked away with the split decision victory …
Back in March Ricky Burns finally lost his world title after being dominated for 12 rounds by Terence Crawford. Both fighters are at it again this weekend albeit against different opponents. Burns takes on unknown Montenegrin Dejan Zlaticanin in Glasgow. Zlaticanin may be undefeated but he has never faught someone on the level of Burns who is rightly rated by Ring Magazine at number four in the lightweight division. Burns should take care of Zlaticanin with relative ease but given …
Weekend preview and prediction: Burns and Crawford Read More »
This article may center on how those who win the Mayweather sweepstakes but it is a wider point in boxing I have never really understood but intuitively made peace with. How do fights get made? There seems to a myriad of reasons and frankly you have to put up with them and just get on with it for the most part. The reason it was running around my head started a while back when Carl Frampton stopped Kiko Martinez. Frampton …
For some reason today has seen the boxing community at large indulge itself in some bizarre rumors and frankly it is hard to keep up. The first half of the year has been very interesting if a little strange and it seems like the second half of the year will be more of the same with some awesome fights and odd ones too. It all started with reports that Manny Pacquiao was going to fight Luis Carlos Abregú from an …
The three fights this weekend could easily have been the least memorable boxing card of 2014. Robert Guerrero in a tune up fight, the boring Devon Alexander and a tactical bore fest with two featherweights. How wrong that was. Devon Alexander is a serial offender when it comes to dull fights and generally isn’t someone I have particularly liked despite some decent wins (Marcos Maidana, Lucas Matthysee to name but two). This weekend though he went toe to toe with …
Weekend round up; Guerrero, Lomachenko and Alexander all win Read More »
In a snapshot Micky Ward has had one of the more interesting boxing careers and indeed lives that one could imagine. Let’s start with his family. He seems to have around 45 sisters and a mother that doubled as his manager plus two dads. His step brother Dicky Eklund boxed Sugar Ray Leonard, was a drug and alcohol addict and spent time behind bars. Micky himself dabbled with drink and drugs whilst at the same time fighting at a world …
Life Before and Beyond The Fighter by Micky Ward Read More »
Now that Carl Froch has dispatched with George Groves and seems set to travel Stateside to cement his legacy. Let us take a look back at the best victories from the career of Carl Froch who has possibly had the toughest run of fights of any fighter of the modern era. 10) Glen Johnson The Road Warrior does get beaten an awful lot (15 by the time he fought Carl) but coming into the Froch fight he had knocked out …
On the 14th of June, Ruslan Provodnikov lost his WBO light welterweight title to Chris Algieri in a really decent bout at the Barclays Centre in Brooklyn, N.Y With the dust settling it seems that no-one really knows what to make of what happened and what will happen next. Has the stock of Provodnikov dropped dramatically? Is this Algieri guy the real deal? How good is Provodnikov anyway? Why did Algieri get the benefit of the doubt when so few …
What is the real story post Provodnikov v Algieri? Read More »
The very definition of the pound for pound rankings accepts that the idea is limited, though they use the word subjective. Personally I like to look at overall ability rather than current ranking within the weight class, opponents beaten or being particularly brilliant in one area over others. It is for this reason that my ten below tends to favor fighters that I feel have a more complete skill set than others. Fundamentally I like fighters that can hit opponents …
So where do we go from here? After a display as good as anything we have seen from Miguel Cotto in his storied career it seems that the world is his oyster. Not only has he lined up a potential mega bout with either Canelo Alvarez or Floyd Mayweather, he can make a justifiable claim to have a very solid chance against either of those opponents. Cotto was both fast and powerful in his utter dismantling of Sergio Martinez. His …
On Saturday the 7th of June, two rather large looming figures in the sport of boxing face each other in quite frankly, a very strange contest. Miguel Cotto has never fought at Middleweight and aside from a gimmie victory over the overmatched Delvin Rodriguez; he hasn’t beaten a live opponent since Antonio Margarito in 2011 losing to both Floyd Mayweather and Austin Trout in between. For Sergio Martinez he has had injury problems but has won his last 7 fights …
Miguel Cotto vs Sergio Martinez; Preview and Prediction Read More »
