(Photo credit: Sumio Yamada) By Paul Strauss: What’s a silly movie made in 1966, starring Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers and Buster Keaton got to do with this Saturday night’s HBO PPV fight night at the Thomas & Mack Center, Las Vegas, NV? Maybe it should be rephrased to …….”Life is what happens when you’re making plans”, or in this case game plans.
In the classic matchups between boxers and punchers, we expect the puncher to attack, hoping to land the big shot. If that doesn’t work, it’s expected he will continue applying extreme pressure, enforcing a threat, hoping to wear down his opponent and then eventually administering the coup de grace (or a series of them if necessary). On the other hand, the boxer is often expected to stay away, jabbing, moving and building up points in hopes of getting a decision. It’s not that unusual to expect he might even get lucky and cut the slugger and get a TKO. It’s pretty simple, right? The fighter who is best at carrying out his fight plan wins the fight.
However, more often than not, funny things happen along the way, and you’ll hear losing fighters in post-fight interviews say things like, “I just couldn’t get off tonight” or “He was faster and stronger than I expected” (Chad Dawson). Maybe the funny thing is “He was in a zone” or “He was really up for this one.” It is an emotional thing that can cause an announcer on nights like that to describe the high level of a fighter’s motivation by saying, “There’s something funny going on here”. (Can you say Buster Douglas) Sometimes new words are even invented as a result of the surprise, such as “rope-a-dope”.
By Joseph Herron: Great trainers insist to every fighter who walks through their gym to leave all emotion at the door. The sport of pugilism is not about violence, but built on sportsmanship, discipline, and athleticism.
By Michael Collins: In looking at how average WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) has looked throughout his boxing career, including his time as the WBC 160 pound champion, one has to wonder whether the 26-year-old Chavez Jr. would be as popular as he is now if his father wasn’t the famous former boxing great Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. Chavez Jr. is able to draw huge crowds in stadiums and draw big ratings on HBO despite looking very mediocre.
By Dwight Chittenden: If things go the way that Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) envisions them to be this Saturday, WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) is going to experience a lot of pain and suffering in taking his first loss of his career when they fight at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
By Robert Jackson: Yesterday, I wrote a piece asking the question as to whether Julio Cesar Chavez Jr was just putting on an act for the cameras which showed him ‘slacking off’ while training for his September 15th fight against Sergio Martinez. HBO’s 24/7 docudrama featured Chavez Jr. deliberately missing scheduled training sessions, sleeping in, and not training at all in one case. In fact Chavez Jr’s body didn’t look as toned as it could be to engage in an upcoming professional fight.
By Marcus Richardson: Trainer Freddie Roach is coming up with plans for his fighter WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) to attack the body of Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) on September 15th to take the fight out of him. Chavez Jr. needs to be able to work on the inside against Martinez somehow because that’s probably the only chance that the 26-year-old Chavez Jr. has of winning this fight.
By Marcus Richardson: WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) doesn’t think too highly of his opponent for September 15th, former WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) and he plans on shutting his mouth when they face each other in a televised fight on HBO pay per view. The asking price for the fight is $49.99 for boxing fans that have deep enough pockets to shell out that kind of cash in this sorry economy. 
By Rob Smith: Former WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) says he can already seen the outcome of his September 15th fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) and he doesn’t see the fight ending well for the 26-year-old son of boxing legend Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Martinez plans on getting the hulking 180 pound Chavez Jr. out of there early to make a nice clean win without any controversy. 
By Rob Smith: Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) plans on taking the Las Vegas judges out of the equation when he meets the highly popular WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) next month on September 15th in their HBO televised pay per view bout at at the Thomas & Mack Center. The fight goes for $49.99 for boxing fans interested in purchasing it on cable. Martinez feels that he’s going to need to knock Chavez Jr. clean out in order to avoid getting jobbed in this fight. He doesn’t have a lot of faith that the judges will give him, a less popular fighter, the decision.