Maidana is reportedly throwing over 100 punches per round during his sparring sessions with the likes of Steve Forbes and Mikey Garcia. In throwing that many punches, Maidana obviously doesn’t have much time to think a lot about throwing the perfect shot because he’s just looking to overwhelm his sparring partners with shots rather than picking his shots.
Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions believes that former two time world title challenger Marco Antoknio Rubio will be a tough test for his fighter WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (30-0, 27 KOs) in their West Coast fight on October 18th at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
The 34-year-old Rubio has twice fought for world titles and twice gone down to defeat to Kelly Pavlik and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Rubio has tried and failed in getting exposed by those two fighters.
WBA World junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (19-2-2, 12 KOs) has started training for his next fight in November, according to Fightnews.com. Lara is interested in possibly facing either James Kirkland or former IBF junior middleweight champion Ishe Smith.
Lara was recently beaten by former WBA/WBC 154 pound champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez by a disputed 12 round decision last July in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was a fight that many boxing fans felt that Lara won due to his command of the ring, and his superb defensive skills.
WBC super bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (27-0-1, 15 KOs) is talking about wanting to fight WBA/WBO 122 pound champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (14-0, 9 KOs) in the near future in a unification match.
Rigondeaux has been taunting Santa Cruz and giving him grief on twitter by saying that he’s terrified about wanting to get in the ring and face him. Santana says he wants to show Rigondeaux how unafraid he is by facing him. Needless to say, this is a very tough match-up for Santa Cruz, because Rigondeaux is the best fighter in the super bantamweight division by far.
“Guillermo (Rigondeaux). He’s the one who’s been calling me out saying that I’m scared,” Santa Cruz said. “I want to prove that I’m not scared. I know it’s a hard fight for me, but we don’t care. I want to give the fans what they want. I want to please them and if they’re happy, I’m happy.”
On Monday, Roc Nation Sports won the purse bid for November 8th matchup between WBO middleweight Peter Quillin (31-0, 22 KOs) and his mandatory challenger Matt Korobov (24-0, 14 KOs). Roc Nation was founded by rapper Jay-Z. They out-bid Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank with a monstrous bid of $1,904,840.
Golden Boy came in second with a bid of $1,207,000. Top Rank was a distant third at $515,000. The bid that Roc Nation put in for the Quillin vs. Korobov fight was obviously a very high one because it’s not a fight that promises a lot of interest from boxing fans.
A match-up between WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (30-0, 27 KOs) and two-time world title challenger Marco Antonio Rubio (59-6-1, 51 KOs) for October 18th at the StubHub Center in Carson, California, according to Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez.
Golovkin is looking to expand his presence to the West Coast, as he’s been fighting on the East Coast and in Monte Carlo in the last year. Fighting Rubio is one of getting the attention of boxing fans in California. Rubio is pretty much the next sacrificial lamb for Golovkin to slaughter.
Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn is dreaming big as far as potential opponents he’d like to line his fighter WBA welterweight champion Kell Brook (33-0, 22 KOs) against next year in 2015. On his wish list is Amir Khan, Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao.
Hearn will have to use all of his skills as a promoter to lure Pacuiao or Mayweather into a fight against Brook. The only way it makes a lot of sense is if they agree to come over to the UK and fight Brook in front of 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium in London, UK.
Al Bernstein says that IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (33-0, 22 KOs) will be looking to make an optional title defense later this year against an opponent still to be determined. Bernstein seems to think it could be 40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez, but that’s pure speculation on his part. Bernstein has no idea who Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn will be choosing for the fight, but if we were to go by Hearn’s track record, I would think not.
.You can’t assume that Brook is going to be able to get past Marquez. That’s a tough fight for Marquez, and Hearn might not want to take the risk in making this fight if it could potentially ruin Brook’s chances of getting a big money payday against Amir Khan, Floyd Mayweather Jr or Manny Pacquiao in 2015.
Former WBA 147 pound champion Marcos Maidana (35-4, 32 KOs) said last night that his plan for his September 13th rematch against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) is to be very aggressive to try and beat him in their headlining fight on the Mayhem fight card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Maidana says he didn’t have his conditioning right to fight a hard fight for 12 rounds in their previous fight last May, and that’s why he tanked in the last half of the fight after taking an early lead in the first 6 rounds.
40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez (56-7-1, 40 KOs) reportedly wants to get a title shot against newly crowned IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (33-0, 22 KOs), presumably for his next fight date in November or December. Marquez wants to try and capture a 5th division world title, and Brook is the easiest of the fighters he’d have a chance to do that against now.
Marquez doesn’t match up against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr, and WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao is obviously another tough match-up for Marquez as well, even though he arguably beat Pacquiao 4 times already.