Froch beats Groves in terrible stoppage; Leapai Outpoints Boytsov in Germany

groves02020In a classic case of poor refereeing, IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch (32-2, 23 KO’s) stopped George Groves (19-1, 15 KO’s) in the 9th round on Saturday night when the referee jumped in between the action of the two fighters and stopped it in the middle of an exchange at the Phones 4u Arena, Manchester, United Kingdom.

It was an incredibly weird stoppage and pathetic at the same time because the referee did a disservice to all the paying fans by prematurely stopping the fight.

Froch hurt Groves with a big windup right hand to start the ball rolling for the stoppage. Groves held onto Froch briefly to try and clear his head, but then Groves seemed to be already and got separation.

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Prizefighter Heavyweights Results: Sprott beats an injured Gavern

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In a tournament between pretty much 2nd tier heavyweights, Britain’s Michael Sprott (40-21, 17 KO’s) was able to bat an injured American journeyman Jason Gavern (24-17-3, 11 KO’s) by a 3 round unanimous decision to win the Prizefighter tourney tonight at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, in London, United Kingdom.

The fact that Sprott won the fight is not in doubt, but the terrible scores by two of the judges makes you shake your head in sadness for the sport. The judges scored it 29-28, 30-27 and 30-27. There was no way that Sprott won all three rounds of the fight unless you ignored completely how Gavern was lighting him up in the 2nd round and had Sprott hurt.

Sprott may have won the fight, but it was hardly as lopsided as the two judges that scored the fight 30-27. That was some terrible scoring, and it kind of cheapened his win. In the 3rd round, Gavern hurt his right elbow in the opening seconds of the round, and from that point on he was in a defensive shell throwing next to no punches.

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DeGale wants Froch to KO Groves

froch678James DeGale thinks George Groves (19-0, 15 KO’s) is wasting his time with his efforts to try and unnerve IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch (31-2, 22 KO’s) before their fight this month on November 23rd in Manchester, UK. Groves has Froch pretty flustered looking in their meeting on Sky Ringside last Thursday to the point where Groves felt that Froch was on verge of tears. DeGale thinks Froch is too good to lose to Groves .

DeGale said to the Daily Mail “George really believes he is going to win this fight but I have no idea where he gets his confidence. He comes across on TV like a cocky schoolboy but he’s kidding himself that he’s getting to Carl psychologically…I want him to knock him out. And I believe he will do that.”

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Hearn: I’ve never seen Froch so rattled before

froch673Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn was very surprised at how his fighter IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch (31-2, 22 KO’s) seemed to come unglued last Thursday night on the Sky Ringside show with his opponent George Groves (19-0, 15 KO’s). Froch was under constant pressure from Groves the entire program with Groves needling him while the two fighters sat on the same bench in the studio.

Near the end of the shot, Froch looked like he was on the verge of tears from Groves comments. Instead of backing off, Groves went for the kill and started pointing out that Froch looked like he was about to cry. It was bad for Froch because he turned to Hearns to see if he would step in to deflect some of the stuff that Groves was saying, but Hearn just sat silently not saying a word. Froch even attempted to get the Ringside host Johnny Nelson to start asking questions of him, but Nelson seemed to be paralyzed by what was transpiring between Froch and Groves.

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Schaefer wants Deontay-Stiverne for WBC heavyweight title

deontay5698Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer expects WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko to vacate his WBC title at any moment now that he’s announced that he plans on running to become the president of Ukraine. Once Vitali’s title becomes vacant, Schaefer’s plans are to match Golden Boy fighter #3 WBC Deontay Wilder (30-0, 30 KO’s) to face #1 WBC Bermane Stiverne (23-1-1, 20 KO’s) for the vacant WBC heavyweight title in early 2014.

Schaefer said this at the post-fight press conference last Saturday following Deontay’s 4th round TKO win over Nicolai Firtha “Deontay is right there at the top 2 or 3 ratings with the WBC. With the news we got last week that Vitali Klitschko is going to be running for the president of the Ukraine, I anticipate that the [WBC] title will become vacant.

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Deontay Wilder looking to impress tonight against Firtha

wilder64#3 WBC, #7 WBA, Deontay Wilder (29-0, 29 KO’s) will be looking to stay in the hunt for a world title shot by staying busy tonight in a 10 round scheduled bout against Nicolai Firtha (21-10, 8 KO’s) at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA. Wilder will likely be facing one of the top contenders such as Bermane Stiverne or Chris Arreola in early 2014 and then fighting for a world title soon after that. Deontay actually sees himself getting a title shot by the early to the middle point of next year.

Deontay said “I’m thinking early-to-mid next year [for world title shot]. We’re trying to line it up now. At the moment I’m ranked number 3 by the WBC, so we’re in planning right now.”

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Burns-Beltran 99 percent done for February

burns4545Contender Raymundo Beltran (28-6-1, 17 KO’s) will be getting a second shot at WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (36-2-1, 11 KO’s) in February next year, as negotiations between the two fighters are reportedly close to being done, according to Burns’ manager Alex Morrison.

The fight will take place in Glasgow, Scotland. Beltran wanted a rematch in another venue, but as the challenger he obviously didn’t have the kind of pull needed to dictate where the fight would take place.

Beltran and Burns fought last September in Glasgow, Scotland it’s fairly unanimous among boxing fans that Beltran did more than enough to deserve the victory over Burns.

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Bellew will need a miracle to beat Stevenson

bellew45British fighter Tony Bellew (20-1-1, 12 KO’s) is going to need a miracle knockout to beat WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (22-1, 19 KO’s) on November 30th because he’s out of his league in every way you can imagine in this one. Bellew has wanted this fight for ages, and now that he’s got it he doesn’t look nearly ready.

While Bellew talks like he’s got the skills to beat Stevenson, the fact is Bellew doesn’t look like he’s in the same class as him. In the last two years of Bellew’s career, he hasn’t shown improvement from his defeat to former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly.

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Deontay Wilder looking for KO No. 30 against Firtha this Saturday

003WildervictoryIMG_3358Undefeated #3 WBC heavyweight contender Deontay Wilder (29-0, 29 KO’s) will be looking for knockout #30 this Saturday night at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The 6’7” Deontay has started off his career with 29 straight knockouts since capturing a bronze medal in the 2008 Olympics for the United States.

The 6’7” Deontay was still pretty raw when he first turned pro in 2008, but he’s steadily improved to the point where he’s starting to look very polished. Deontay’s recent string of early knockouts over the likes of Siarhei Liakhovich, Audley Harrison and Kelvin Price shows the kind of improvement that Deontay has made in his game.

These same opponents would have likely extended Deontay a little if he had fought them in 2009 when he was still finding his way in the division. But Deontay has really made a ton of progress of late, and this Saturday boxing fans will get a chance to see if he’s ready to start taking on tougher challenges in the division.

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Photos: Carl Frampton defeats Parodi

Cyclone Promotions presents Boxing at The Odyssey Arena. 12 x 3 Minute rounds IBF World Title Eliminator and European Title Defence between Carl Frampton (Belfast) and Jeremy Parodi, (France)EBU super bantamweight champion Carl Frampton (17-0, 12 KO’s) annihilated a badly over-matched, and underpowered Jeremy Parodi (35-2-1, 9 KO’s) by a 6th round knockout tonight at the Odyssey Arena, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. Frampton placed a perfect left hand to the body that put Parodi down on the canvas. The referee then counted Parodi out.

The bout was not much of a fight because Parodi was too busy getting nailed with power shots for the entire fight to do much besides throwing jabs. Parodi didn’t have the armament to make this an actual fight, so he ended up taking shots one after another for 6 rounds until hitting the deck from a left hand from Frampton.

Parodi was cut over the left eye in the 4th, and the blood was obviously a big problem for him. But even if he hadn’t been cut, he wasn’t going to be able to do much in this fight due to his lack of power. Parodi was over-matched in every sense of the word.

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