Andre Dirrell in action this Friday in Shelton, WA

07/26/2014 Kevin Chittenden

Super middleweight Andre Dirrell (21-1, 14 KOs) has left his promoter 50 Cent and is now ready to resume his career in the ring with adviser Al Haymon guiding his career. The 30-year-old Dirrell, who hasn’t seen action since last year in February, will be fighting on August 1st on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights at Little Creek Casino Resort in Shelton, Washington.

The opponent is not known at this time, but they’re looking for someone that can step in on short notice to take the fight with the speedy Dirrell. Renan St. Juste was the guy that Dirrell supposed to be fighting on the card, but he went down with a foot injury and won’t be able to take the fight.

Nelson: Burns will beat Zlaticanin

06/25/201406/24/2014 Kevin Chittenden

Sky Sports commentator Johnny Nelson is confident that former two division world champion Ricky Burns (36-3-1, 11 KO’s) will come out on top this Friday night in his fight against #13 WBC Dejan Zlaticanin (18-0, 13 KO’s) at the Braehead Arena, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom.

Burns, who is coming off of a loss to Terence Crawford last March, has been saying that if he wins this fight on Friday, his promoter Eddie Hearn will set him up with a title shot against WBC lightweight champion Omar Figueroa. Burns is ranked only #15 by the WBC, so if Hearn is able to get him a title shot off of a win over #13 WBC Zlaticanin then it’s going to have to be an optional title defense by Figueroa.

Arum expects Pacquiao-Bradley 2 to generate 1.2 million PPV buys

04/10/2014 Kevin Chittenden

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is dreaming high about his fight card he’s putting on this Saturday night on HBO pay-per-view with Manny Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley as the headliner bout at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Arum thinks the fight will generate 1.2 million buys, which is a very high number given Bradley’s lack of popularity, and given the absence of a high quality undercard to go along with the fight.

To say that Arum scrimped on the undercard is to put it lightly. Arum did the absolute minimum in terms of the undercard fights in adding the following television fights: Raymundo Beltran vs. Arash Usmanee, Bryan Vasquez vs. Jose Felix Jr and Khabib Allakhverdiev vs. Jessie Vargas. I don’t have much interest in seeing any of those fights, and it’s disappointing that I’ll be forced to sit through them while I wait for what I consider to be the only watchable fight on the entire card between Pacquiao and Bradley. Even that fight isn’t a great one because their previous fight was really boring.

Bradley: My fight with Pacquiao won’t go the distance

04/04/201404/03/2014 Kevin Chittenden

WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s) isn’t known for his punching power, but he feels that his April 12th rematch with former 8 division world champion Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KO’s) is going to end with one of them getting knocked out in front of a large pay-per-view crowd on HBO, and live at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Bradley’s only way of getting a knockout of Pacquiao is if he can catch him with something while he’s running in. Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach practically has him brainwashed with the belief that he’s got to fight for a full 3 minutes of every round. That’s a good plan to follow when you’ve got a younger fighter with a strong chin and not a lot of mileage on him. But Pacquiao is 35, and he’s been in countless difficult fights during his career. He also was knocked out badly by Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012, and not had a hard fight since then.

Jones Jr. thinks Pascal can become a huge star

01/17/201401/16/2014 Kevin Chittenden

While many boxing fans see former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal as a fighter who has had his 15 minutes of fame and is on the downside of his career, Roy Jones Jr., who Pascal was compared to earlier in his career, thinks that the 31-year-old Pascal can still become a huge star if he can beat former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute this Saturday night, and then beat Adonis Stevenson and Sergey Kovalev. That’s a lot easier said than done, because Pascal looked terrible in getting beaten by Bernard Hopkins in 2011, and he’s done next to nothing since losing that fight.

“If Pascal wins this [Bute] and goes out and gets Stevenson next, it would be a big deal again in Quebec,” Jones Jr. said to Yahoo Sports. “But if he puts together some impressive fights and markets himself, it could be a big deal everywhere. And I think it’s a lot better to be a big deal everywhere.”

Chavez Jr-Vera set for March 1st in San Antonio, Texas

01/13/2014 Kevin Chittenden

Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (47-1-1, 32 KO’s) has signed his contract for a rematch against Brian Vera (23-7, 14 KO’s) on March 1st on HBO at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. This time there will be a $250,000 weight penalty for Chavez Jr. if he can’t make the weight for the fight. As of now, it’ll be at 168 lbs., but it’ll be interesting to see if this weight will be nudged forward to the 170s like in his fight with Vera last September.

That weight ended up taking place at 173 lbs., and even then Chavez Jr. looked incredibly emaciated when weighing in. During the fight, Chavez Jr. looked as big as a cruiserweight, and one can only guess how heavy he was. Vera ended outworking Chavez Jr. and getting robbed in the eyes of many fans. Chavez Jr. looked good enough to win 3-4 rounds at best, and it was hard to understand what the three judges saw in his performance that made them score the fight for him.

Lucian Bute vs. Jean Pascal this Saturday on HBO in Montreal

01/12/2014 Kevin Chittenden

This Saturday night Jean Pascal (28-2-1, 17 KO’s) and Lucian Bute (31-1, 24 KO’s) will be facing each other in an HBO televised fight from the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada. Pascal, 31, has fought only rarely since his loss to Bernard Hopkins in 2011. Pascal fought once in 2012 in beating Aleksy Kuziemski and once in 2013 in stopping 39-year-old George Blades. It’s been three years since Pascal had his last serious fight, and anything is possible when you have a fighter as rusty as Pascal is.

Pascal is getting Bute at the right time of his career with Bute having been stopped in the 5th round by Carl Froch in May of 2012, and having problems beating Denis Grachev in November of 2012. Bute didn’t look good in the Grachev fight, as he made what should have been an easy fight into a very tough one by fighting so timidly.

Wladimir Klitschko vs. Alex Leapai bout to take place in Germany in April

01/11/2014 Kevin Chittenden

IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (61-3, 51 KO’s) and his WBO mandatory challenger Alex Leapai (30-4, 24 KO’s) have reportedly agreed to face each other in April in Germany, according to Fightnews. The actual date they’re looking at for the fight is April 26th, but they still need to sign off on the contracts. There had been speculation that the two fighters management wouldn’t come to an agreement, which would force it into a purse bid. But looks like they’ve agreed to having the fight take place in Germany.

Leapai, 34, defeated Denis Boytsov by a 10 round unanimous decision last November to become he mandatory challenger for Wladimir. It’s interesting that Leapai and Boytsov were the ones that ended up fighting for the mandatory spot, because there are arguably a number of better contenders in the WBO’s top 15 than these two.

Chisora to try and get Wladimir fight in Africa in 2014

01/10/201401/10/2014 Kevin Chittenden

EBU heavyweight champion Dereck Chisora (19-4, 13 KO’s) is hoping to work his way into a world title fight this year against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (61-3, 51 KO’s). Chisora figures he could be two wins away from locking himself in as the mandatory challenger for Wladimir. Chisora specifically wants to get Wladimir over to Africa to fight him there in a repeat of the ‘Rumble in the Jungle.’

It’s kind of a crazy idea that Chisora has in wanting to get Wladimir over to Africa, because the chances of it happening are so remote that it’s kind of difficult to even fathom this taking place. For Chisora to have a chance of realizing his dream of getting Wladimir to Africa, he’ll need to beat Ukrainian Andriy Rudenko (24-0, 16 KO’s) on February 15th, and then beat Tyson Fury in a rematch next summer.

Chisora vs. Fury II possible for June in heavyweight eliminator

01/08/201401/08/2014 Kevin Chittenden

A rematch between Dereck Chisora (19-4, 13 KO’s) and Tyson Fury (21-0, 15 KO’s) is being talked about for June of this year in a potential heavyweight title eliminator bout, according to Chisora’s promoter Frank Warren. He’s interested in setting up a second fight between Chisora and Fury and putting it in a large football stadium for the Summer, provided that both of them win their perspective fights on February 15th at the Copper Box Arena in London, UK.

Both guys are fighting on the card in separate fights. For Fury, it’s probably not a big deal, because he’s expected to be matched softly against a weak opponent in a tune-up bout to get some of the cobwebs off after sitting idle for 8 months in trying to get fights against David Haye.