It was February 7, 1997 and heavyweights Lennox Lewis and Oliver McCall met in Las Vegas to both decide the vacant WBC title and to box a rematch. Lewis, who had been shocked by McCall in September of 1994, being bowled over in the 2nd-round, had revenge uppermost on his mind. McCall? To this day nobody really knows what the state of his mind truly was.
What followed twenty years ago today ranks as one of the craziest, weirdest and most disturbing of all heavyweight title fights.
Brash, outspoken and unbeaten New York heavyweight Jarrell Miller, 18-0-1(16) says it’s “time to show my skills,” and the 28-year-old is relishing the idea of a fight with unbeaten Cuban southpaw Luis Ortiz to do just that. According to a news piece on Sky Sports, Ortiz’ promoter Eddie Hearn has been trying to get a fight in the US for Ortiz and April and May are possible months for an Ortiz-Miller clash.
Proud Irishman and now former featherweight champ Carl Frampton says his loss to Leo Santa Cruz in their rematch is simply “too annoying” for him to watch on video. Wanting to look back on the close decision loss he suffered in Las Vegas, Frampton put the fight on yet, as he told The Belfast Telegraph, he had to turn it off after just two rounds.
Despite the frustration at losing to the Mexican warrior, or because of it, Frampton is massively eager to get the third fight on, and in Belfast. Talks between the two camps have now begun, Frampton has confirmed, and he also says that whoever he fights next, it will definitely be in Belfast.
Retired heavyweight great Lennox Lewis is eager to see whether or not the loss Wladimir Klitschko suffered at the hands of Tyson Fury back (way back it seems now) in November of 2015 has “re-lit his flame.” Lewis says that in some cases, including his own, a defeat can motivate a fighter to come back harder, stronger.
Speaking with The Evening Standard, the all-time great who defeated every man he faced during his fine career, says he will be able to tell “after two rounds” if Klitschko has got the old fire back or not.
Former British middleweight champ Chris Eubank Junior did as was widely, even universally expected last night, and defeated little-known Australian Renold Quinlan in London. In stopping the tougher than expected visitor, Eubank picked up the IBO super-middleweight strap. Now a “world” champion, the outspoken Brighton man wasted no time in calling out the big guns of the 160 and 168 divisions (he left out light-heavyweight ruler Andre Ward on this occasion of name calling).
Of the four pro defeats Amir Khan has suffered – to Breidis Prescott, Lamont Peterson, Danny Garcia and Canelo Alvarez – it is the third defeat he picked up, at the hands of Garcia, that bothers him the most – simply because Khan fully believes, as do others, that he was beating Garcia before “making one mistake and getting caught.”
Khan craves a shot at revenge, and he wants one far more than he wants a fight with fellow Brit Kell Brook. Khan, who says he cannot wait to return to ring action with his “new” right hand, having had surgery on the hand before Christmas, aims for a tune-up first before hopefully getting the rematch with Garcia towards the end of the year.
Tonight in London in the chief support to the Eubank-Quinlan IBO super-middleweight title fight, Germany’s Christian Hammer stopped an exhausted David Price in the 7th-round of an exciting heavyweight battle. Price, in a must-win fight, had huge success early on, dropping Hammer and hurting him a number of times, but he simply ran out of gas and wilted when a determined Hammer showed he was tough enough to stick around.
The end came at the 1:20-second mark of the 7th, when Price, stuck on the ropes, open-mouthed and taking shots, forced the referee to dive in and halt the fight. Price, in losing for the fourth time, all by stoppage, is now 21-4(18). Hammer, in scoring one of the biggest wins of his career, is now 21-4(12).
The venue for the massive May 6 “Battle of Mexico” between Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Junior has been announced – the catch-weight showdown will take place in Las Vegas, at The T-Mobile Arena – and Chavez Jnr announced who will be training him for the biggest fight of his career: legendary boxing trainer Nacho Beristain.
Chavez, though the bigger, heavier man (the fight taking place at an agreed, strictly enforced 164.5 pounds) faces a daunting task against the peaking Alvarez. Most fans and experts, though they either predict or hope for a good, maybe even great fight, feel there is only one winner, and it’s Canelo. Certainly it would be a pretty big upset if Chavez – a fighter who has boxed infrequently over recent months and has seen his reputation suffer due to a couple of bad performances – managed to derail The Canelo Express in May.
Thanks to his stunning return KO win over Dejan Zlaticanin, three-weight ruler Mikey Garcia is one of the hottest fighters on the scene today, and everyone wants to see what the unbeaten 29-year-old does next. Currently 36-0(30) and the WBC lightweight champ, Garcia has a ton of options.
One of these options is to fight in the UK, against one of the rival 135 pound champions from these shores. And Garcia, as he explained to Sky Sports, very much likes the idea of fighting a big fight in England.
It has just been announced on social media by WBO president Paco Valcarcel how Duco Events, who are the promotional outfit behind reigning WBO heavyweight champ Joseph Parker, won the purse bid for the Parker-Hughie Fury fight.
The clash of young unbeaten heavyweights will now go ahead on April 1st in Auckland in New Zealand.