We saw that unless Broner moves back down to the lightweight division, he could end up as little more than just a contender in the future. We learned that Broner’s power isn’t as lethal at welterweight compared to when he was fighting at lightweight.
Malignaggi exposed Broner’s flat-footed fighting style and was able to easily outmaneuver him in the ring for much of the fight. It often took Broner too long to get his shots off because he often waited too long before he’d let his hands go.
WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (36-2, 11 KO’s) got his difficult title defense against Jose Gonzalez out of the way in beating him by a 9th round TKO last May, and now Burns will be making what should be a lot easier title defense against #8 WBO 8 Raymundo Beltran (28-6, 17 KO’s) on September 7th in Glasgow, Scotland.
If Burns beats Beltran, he will likely face the winner of the Gavin Rees vs. Anthony Crolla fight next. That’ll give Burns two relatively easy fights back to back before he has to take on someone dangerous like Sergio Thompson, Omar Figueroa or Terrence Crawford. That’s where Burns will really be tested.
Beltran is a good fighter, but he’s already lost at the top rungs of the division recently in defeats against Luis Ramos Jr. and Sharif Bogere. Beltran did defeat Hank Lundy and Ji-Hoon Kim recently, but those guys aren’t in the same class as Burns and it’s not the same thing.
The Cleverly-Kovalev fight will be staged at the Motorpoint Arena, in Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom.
This will be one of the rare fights for Cleverly where he’s fighting someone that actually is a really good fighter and who has a chance to beat him. You can’t say that about a lot of the guys that Cleverly has been fighting since he picked up the WBO 175 lb. title in 2011. There’s been a lot of weak opposition that Cleverly has been facing and it’s nice to see him fight a live body for a change.
Now that Adonis Stevenson (21-1, 18 KO’s) has the WBC light heavyweight title after obliterating Chad Dawson in one round, Britain’s Tony Bellew, the #1 WBC 175 lb. contender, has come out of the woodwork and he wants his shot at Stevenson’s new WBC title and he likes his chances in beating the 35-year-old.
Bellew said to Sky Sports “He’s [Stevenson] the one I’d have preferred to face…it’s not going to last long…Adonis Stevenson is wild and gives you opportunities. So I don’t think he’s going to be a long-standing champion, especially if I’ve got anything to do with it.”
In response to a comment from unbeaten heavyweight contender Tyson Fury (21-0, 15 KO’s) over the weekend where Fury said a fight between him and former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (26-2, 24 KO’s) was “99 percent done,” Haye answered the questions on his social media site saying that he’s not agreed to fight the 6’9” heavyweight.
Haye said on his twitter today: “I read that Fury thinks a fight with me and himself is ‘99% Done’ HAHA At best i’d say there’s Light Discussions, that are moving slowly. For everyone asking if I’m fighting Fury. I currently have no agreement, or contract in place. But a fight later in the year would be fun.”
Matthew Macklin (29-4, 20 KO’s) has done an admirable job in losses to Felix Sturm and Sergio Martinez when he’s stepped it up a level but he’s failed to get the win. He fought both of them very tough but he came up short because he didn’t have quite enough talent to beat them.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer is saying that he’s got an agreement from both Amir Khan and IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander for a fight on December 7th in Dubai. Schaefer is still working out the details of the fight and he still needs to iron out the venue, but he’s got the hardest part out of the way in getting both guys to agree to the fight.
Schaefer’s grand plan is to have Khan fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. next year if he gets past Alexander. That’s a big if. Khan looks almost like he’s on his last legs in losing two out of his last four fights and barely beat Julio Diaz in his last fight.
That would have been three losses in Khan’s last four fights. I actually had Khan losing that fight but it shows you how vulnerable Khan is that he couldn’t even beat a fighter like Diaz without controversy.
Undefeated heavyweight Tyson Fury (21-0, 15 KO’s) is said to be in negotiations with three different opponents at one for his next fight. His promoter Mick Hennessey wants to match Fury against former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (26-2, 24 KO’s), and Fury has even dropped out of his planned fight against Kubrat Pulev just so that he can in the position to get a fight against Haye.
If Fury can get that fight he stands to make £2million, according to Steve Bunce. This is considerably more than the €400,000 he might make for a fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko if Fury were able to get past Pulev in the IBF heavyweight eliminator bout that he had been attempting to put together until recently.
British heavyweight David Price (15-1, 13 KO’s) is taking out all the stops in getting ready for his rematch next month against 41-year-old Tony Thompson (37-3, 25 KO’s) on July 6th at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK. The soon to be 30-year-old Price will be bringing in some of Wladimir Klitschko’s sparring partners from Europe to spar with him in Liverpool.
Price wants to spar as much 100 rounds, like former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis used to do when he was still fighting. Price was getting training guidance with Lewis recently and he’s got Price working out a lot harder than before in order to improve the 6’8” former Olympian.
Former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) will be battling IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander (25-1, 14 KO’s) on December 7th in a fight that could take place in Dubai. If Khan wins the fight, Golden Boy Promotions will look to match him up with WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. in early 2014.
Richard Schaefer, the CEO for Golden Boy, told the dailymail.co.uk “Amir needs one fight at welterweight along with a title to set up the match with Floyd…[Alexander] has agreed to the fight. We will be finalizing and signing the contract in the next couple of weeks…if he defeats Devon…the next step for him would be against Floyd.”