Amir Khan tweeted recently saying he would take the fight vs Miguel Cotto ‘in a heartbeat.’ Amir Khan is obviously after the biggest names in the sport for the huge paydays and has been calling out every big name under the sun.
He went through a real ordeal of calling out Floyd Mayweather consistently dating back even before the first Maidana fight. That situation left him with no opponent, finally opting to face Devon Alexander rather than wait it out anymore.
Boxing has produced some real characters over the years, but Victor Ortiz is developing into one of the most enigmatic men currently active. Ortiz and Rios did grow up together through boxing and this would be a fight with a true emotionally charged back story, but other than that it does not seem to have a lot going for it. The Marcos Maidana, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Josesito Lopez and Luis Collazo debacles do not seem to have phased Ortiz.
In an interview with IFL TV Eddie Hearn said that he was looking to have the DeGale- Andre Dirrell fight in the UK on April 25th and was confident that he could make that happen. He said regardless of whether they can make that date happen, he is looking to finalize the deal and would make an announcement in a weeks time. This announcement should lay out most of the details of that show and what the card will be made of and detail what the situation is between DeGale and Dirrell.
This is a great fight between two once beaten fighters, which will provide a new IBF champion regardless of who wins. Certainly this is a tough fight for the pair of them due to their styles, but an impressive win could set up a string of super fights against the other talents in the division such as George Groves, Anthony Dirrell, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr and even Andre Ward.
7 foot heavyweight Taishan Dong (2-0-0 2KO) from China has received quite a bit of coverage in the media not usually enjoyed by fighters with just one or two professional fights. He has said in the past that he has only been fighting for a few years and to pick up boxing in your early twenties is not usually followed by a successful career, but in this case the physical tools are so rare that he could defiantly make it. In recent years we have seen Valuev take up boxing a little later than most and go on to become a title holder at heavyweight, and this could become a similar story.
Several of the biggest names in the business have no scheduled fights in place. Over the past few weeks there has been tons of talk and chatter about potential matchups and especially between the never-ending lists of May-Pac ‘news.’
When you consider that Mayweather, Pacquiao, Froch, Khan, Bradley, Cotto, Ward, Marquez, Stevenson and Maidana are all without an opponent lined up, you have to believe that some awesome fights are going to be announced in the coming weeks. It is almost guaranteed that some fights will be made within this list, mainly in and around the welterweight region where there is a lot of talent.
Oscar De La Hoya, in a recent interview with FightHype, had a ton of compliments for the next man to be going up against Canelo Alvarez. He referenced James Kirklands victory over Alfredo Angulo as a highlight of Kirklands career and went on to say that the come forward style Kirkland brings will generate fireworks in this fight.
There have been a lot of questions about Saul Alvarez recently and he is receiving some very mixed opinions from the public and media at this point. In my opinion I can see both sides of the argument. On the positive side Alvarez has 44 wins in 46 fights with just one loss and one draw. At 24 years of age he has the time to amass a huge amount of fights by the time he retires and the fact that he has already fought with some of the best at such a young age is impressive. He has victories over notable names such as Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout and on top of this he has a pretty enjoyable style to watch and enjoys huge popularity which means he can nab the big fights.
Danny Garcia is set to fight Lamont Peterson in his next outing. Other big names include the winner of Matthysse vs Provodnikov, the winner of Broner vs Molina and a few others including Amir Imam, Jessie Vargas, Viktor Postol and Thomas Dulorme. The question is, could any of these fighters beat the lineal champ Garcia if they tried today?
Garica holds the WBA, WBC and The Ring titles, Peterson holds the IBF share and the WBO is currently vacant. This means that after the clash with Peterson there will only be one relevant champion in the division, despite the fact their titles are not on the line officially. After that who knows what the next step is for Garcia, he can chose to make another defence of his titles at 140 or move up for more lucrative bouts at 147 and attempt at his second weight class.
WBA welterweight champion Keith Thuman (24-0, 21 KOs) is looking to maintain his high KO percentage when he takes on former two division world champion Robert Guerrero (32-2-1, 18 KOs) in their upcoming bout on March 7th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Currently Thurman has won in all of his 24 outings and has taken 21 opponents out within the scheduled distance. In his last fight Thurman went up against long time European champion Leonard Bundu who had not had a loss in 33 fights, but failed to get the stoppage that has come to be expected of him. If he does not stop Guerrero people will start to say that he cannot maintain the same level of offense when he is against world level competition.
In a recent interview Oscar De La Hoya, president of Golden Boy Promotions, promised fans that the much anticipated bout between former world title challenger Lucas Matthysse and former WBC light welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov would be taking place for March 28th at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. In the sport where a lot of fights get missed it is good to hear a guarantee of the fight taking place from the promoter.
This is a fight many in boxing are looking forward to due to the fact that each of the combatants mentioned are amongst the best in the business at what they do. Each man has the skill set to cut off the ring and land on their opponents, although this is the type of fight where neither man will have to look far to find each other.
American Andre Dirrell is still hopeful of a rematch with current WBA super-middleweight champion Carl Froch. At this point it has to be seen as an unlikely prospect because if Froch is turning down fights with guys he has not faced in the past like James DeGale and Bernard Hopkins, it is unlikely that he would face a fighter he has already beaten in Dirrell.
Carl Froch has had a long career with a very long undefeated span for British and Commonwealth titles before going 10 – 2 – 0 (5KO) in world title fights. In his twelve world title fights he has held the WBC, IBF and WBA titles at one point or another.