Rios thinks Mayweather is name dropping to increase his popularity

12/22/2014 Rob Smith

Former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios is extremely skeptical that a fight between the two biggest stars in boxing Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao will take place in 2015. Rios says he’ll believe it when he sees the two fighters in the ring.

Rios says he’s suspicious of Mayweather’s motives for suddenly saying he’s interested in the Pacquiao fight. Rios thinks that one of the reason why Mayweather is mentioning a fight against Pacquiao right now is perhaps an effort for Mayweather to boost his name value. Rios thinks Mayweather is afraid that his name is dying and that by mentioning Pacquiao, he could be raising his name.

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Is Beterbiev ready for Adonis Stevenson?

12/22/2014 Jeff Sorby

Former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal, who appears to be tired of seeing WBC 175 title holder Adonis Stevenson face weak opposition, suggested recently that Stevenson should face contender Artur Beterbiev (7-0, 7 KOs) in his next optional defense so that he can rebuild his image with the boxing public.

Stevenson won over a lot of boxing fans with his 1st round knockout win over Chad Dawson last year in June of 2013. Since then, however, Stevenson has backed off from tough opposition and beaten Tavoris Cloud, Tony Bellew, Andrzej Fonfara and Dmitry Sukhotsky. Pascal wants to see Stevenson rebuild his name because he wants his fight against him in 2015 to be a big event. It’s not likely to be a big even with the kind of opposition that Stevenson has been facing.

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Khan rules out Kell Brook fight

12/22/2014 Bill Phanco

One fight that boxing fans likely won’t be seeing in 2015 is a clash between two of the top British fighters at 147. Amir Khan doesn’t have a world title belt in his possession, but he’s sure acting like he has one.

Khan says he won’t be fighting the highly popular and big punching IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook because he feels that he’s not shown him the type of respect that he wants. If that wasn’t enough of a reason for Khan, he also added that Brook isn’t on the same level as him.

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The Greatest Super Middleweight Boxers of All-Time

12/22/2014 Adam McMeeking

On the 28th of March, 1984, Murray Sutherland, with a modest record of forty-one wins, eleven losses and one draw, defeated Ernie Singletary for the vacant International Boxing Federation title, becoming the first internationally accepted world champion in the one hundred and sixty-eight pounds, super middleweight division.

A little over thirty years have passed since Scotland’s Sutherland was crowned champion, and in that time dozens of talented pugilists have graced the division. Initially boxing’s elite seemed to merely use it as a pit-stop, on the way to light heavyweight, or as simply an opportunity to capture a title in a different weight class. Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and James Toney didn’t stay long, but by the end of the 1990’s the reigns of Jones, Benn and Eubank had helped it evolve into a respected weight class in its own right.

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Mayweather will have an asterisk even if he beats Pacquiao now, says Jones Jr

12/20/2014 Bill Phanco

According to Roy Jones Jr, Floyd Mayweather Jr will have an asterisk next to his record when he leaves the game because of him having never fought Manny Pacquiao during his career. But even if Mayweather does choose to fight Pacquiao, he’ll still wind up with an asterisk on his record because Pacquiao being on the decline at this point in his career. In other words, Mayweather is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t as far as Pacquiao goes.

Jones Jr thinks Mayweather’s fighting style is boring, and he’s not impressed with what he saw of him in his two back to back fights against Marcos Maidana. Jones thinks the most exciting thing about those two fights is Mayweather getting bit by Maidana on the glove.

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Arum: 48 million homes in China watched Pacquiao-Algieri

12/20/2014 Rob Smith

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says that 48 million homes in China watched the mismatch between Arum’s fighter Manny Pacquiao and little known Chris Algieri last November in their fight from Macao, China. The fight was painfully one-sided from start to finish with Pacquiao beating the hapless Algieri like a drum.

It wasn’t one of the more interesting fights to watch if you’re a fan of competitive matches, but then again we knew it was going to be a mismatch going in so it wasn’t a surprise.

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Arum: Mayweather is poaching the Mexican holiday

12/20/2014 Rob Smith

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has no interest whatsoever in staging the mega fight between his fighter Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr on the Mexican holiday on May 2nd. According to Arum, he sees this as disrespectful to the Mexican people that Mayweather wants to fight on the May 2nd date, which is the Cinco de Mayo holiday.

Arum sees that May 2nd date belonging to Mexican fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who was not long ago easily beaten by Mayweather. The idea is Canelo will fight Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto on the May 2nd date instead of Mayweather fighting Pacquiao. Arum promotes Cotto, so it’s a win-win situation for him if that fight goes ahead on May 2nd. Arum prefers the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight to take place in April or June of next year.

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Dahou stops Valenzuela in round 1 to retain WBC Youth title

12/21/201412/20/2014 Prince Dornu-Leiku

Algeria’s boxing pride, Djamel Dahou made a strong case to break into the world ratings after claiming a first round knockout victory over Daniel Valenzuela on Friday night to make a successful defence of the WBC Youth Welterweight title in his home country.

Undefeated Dahou (now 13-0, 12 KOs) in fact needed only 76 seconds in Bordj Bou Arreridj to snuff out the challenge of Valenzuela (drops to 33-25-2, 21 KOs) who had shown so much promise in the opening seconds.

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Fighting the smart fight

12/20/2014 Daniel M Webster

Boxing is a brutal sport. Of course, those of us who appreciate the subtleties of the game use colorful euphemisms to emphasize the skill rather than the violence. We call it the “Sweet Science”, or the “Noble Art”. Yet at its essence the thing that compels us to watch boxing is the controlled savagery, the idea that we can put our basest elements on display, yet do so within a set of rules which elevates it from mere barbarism to an almost divine test of skill and heart. Yet even with this emphasis on the ethereal, we expect to see the two combatants push themselves to their limits, to give everything they have and hold nothing back in the ring. Those who do so are exalted not only in victory, but in defeat as well. Those who do not, those who seek to give less than their all in the circle of truth, will find that even a win may serve as a career setback. Watching Keith “One Time” Thurman taking the path of least resistance this weekend lead me to ask myself, what exactly is the “smart fight”?

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Stevenson stops Sukhotsky; Dirrell beats Edwards

12/20/201412/19/2014 Jeff Sorby

In an embarrassingly one-sided fight, WBC 175 pound champion Adonis Stevenson (25-1, 21 KOs) annihilated #7 WBC Dmitry Sukhotsky (22-3, 16 KOs) by a 5th round knockout tonight at the Colisee de Quebec, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. If the idea was to pick out an opponent that was no threat to him, Stevenson did a good job with Sukhotsky because this guy did very little in the fight on offense in this one-sided affair.

Stevenson hurt Sukhotsky with a straight left to the head that put him down on the canvas. Stevenson would then knock Sukhotsky down twice more in the round with left hands before the fight was halted at 2:42 of the round.

“He [Sergey Kovalev] has com come to me. I’m the Ring champion, so he has to come to me,” Stevenson said.

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