Thompson defeats Price

02/24/201302/23/2013 ESB

price43 By Michael Collins: American heavyweight Tony Thompson (37-3, 25 KO’s) ended the David Price (15-1, 13 KO’s) hype machine by taking him out in a 2nd round TKO on Saturday night at the Echo Arena, in Liverpool, United Kingdom. The win for Thompson affirmed in the minds of some fans that the 29-year-old Price simply doesn’t have the chin to succeed at the highest levels in the pro game.

Up until this fight, Price had been carefully matched by his promoter Frank Maloney against weak opposition without a punch. Even Thompson isn’t what you would call a puncher, but he definitely was a step up from the guys that Price had been fighting, and Price failed the test miserably.

Peterson stops Holt in 8th – Video Interviews with Peterson/Holt

02/23/201302/23/2013 ESB

By Bill Phanco: In an impressive performance, IBF light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (31-1-1, 18 KO’s) retained his IBF title on Friday night in stopping Kendall Holt (28-6, 16 KO’s) in the 8th round at the DC Armory, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.

Referee Tony Weeks stopped the fight after Peterson unloaded with a storm of shots while Holt stood helpless against the ropes futilely trying to block the nonstop rain of shots. The official stoppage was at 1:42 of the round. Peterson put Holt down in the 4th and 6th rounds, and had him hurt in every round from the 4th on.

Adrien Broner bullies his way to 5th Rd TKO of Gavin Rees

02/17/2013 ESB

by Paul Strauss:: Saturday night at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J. Adrien “The Problem” Broner 26-0-0 (22 KOs) surprised no one by scoring a punishing win over the much smaller and out-gunned Gavin Rees 37-2-1 (18 KOs). Not many people gave Rees the proverbial “snowball’s chance in hell”. In fact, HBO’s Max Kellerman stated Rees was an 80 to 1 underdog. To Rees’ credit, though, he tried like hell to make a fight of it, but he just did not have the size, necessary skill or power to be a serious threat to Broner. Initially, Rees made a pest out of himself by shrinking his already short 5’4″ stature to about 3’6″, trying to get under Broner’s shots, so he could get close enough to land some of his own. He managed to get through with some pretty good left hooks to the body. He tried to follow those with clubbing rights to the side and top of Broner’s head, but the angle, due to Broner’s shoulder roll, proved to be a difficult one. Rees just couldn’t get any zip on those shots. Despite that, the referee warned him about the location of his punches?

The only redeeming factor in the bout was Rees’ display of heart and courage. Even though he was totally outsized and outclassed, he fought on hoping for a miracle. It was not to be. Broner did as expected. He started slowly, timing Rees, waiting for his countering opportunities. Early on Rees was able to block Broner’s check hooks, but before too long a couple got across. Those hard shots immediately made Rees less mobile. All of a sudden, his head became more stationary, and although he was bent over, his body was there to be hit as well.

Broner destroys Rees; Bika decisions Sjekloca

02/17/201302/16/2013 ESB

By Bill Phanco: WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (26-0, 22 KO’s) was just too strong for challenger Gavin Rees (37-2-1, 18 KO’s) tonight in beating Rees by a 5th round TKO victory at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Broner put Rees down twice, and stopped him shortly after dropping him with a left to the body in the 5th. Broner was hammering away on Rees after he got up, and this led to Rees’ trainer Gary Lockett throwing in the towel to stop the punishment.

The knockdown in the 5th came when the two fighters were in close, and Rees seemed to be confused, as if he thought the referee was going to break them because they had stopped punching. Broner used the opportunity to hit Rees with a crunching left to the body that put Rees down on the canvas.

Frampton TKO’s Martinez in 9th round; Lee decisions Fitzgerald; Selby defeats Lindsay

02/10/201302/09/2013 ESB

By Jeff Sorby: After a shaky start in the first three rounds tonight, Carl Frampton (16-0, 11 KO’s) came on strong to dominate and stop EBU super bantamweight champion Kiko Martinez (27-4, 19 KO’s) by a 9th round TKO at the Odyssey Arena, Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

Martinez ran into a right hand from Frampton in the 9th that put him down. The fight was then halted after Martinez got back to his feet but was too hurt to continue. Frampton spent much of the fight moving around the ring, clinching, ducking below the waist, and trying to avoid the pressure from Martinez.

Braehmer beats Gutknecht – Robert Woge wins first title

02/06/201302/04/2013 ESB

Juergen Braehmer is the new European Light Heavyweight Champion. After twelve exciting rounds, the 34-year-old won an unanimous decision over previous titlist Eduard Gutknecht in Berlin on Saturday night.

“It was a very tough fight against Eddy. I did manage to take advantage of most of my strengths, but it was difficult for me to keep focus for the whole duration of the fight,” said the prodigy of coach Karsten Roewer after the championship bout at the Max-Schmeling-Halle.

Right at the beginning, the former titleholder Gutknecht was keen to put his stamp onto the fight and went straight into attack mode. The 30-year-old caught Braehmer on the head, who seemed a bit overrun by this ferocious start. However, this was not going to be the only unwanted surprise for the man from northern Germany. Gutknecht tried everything he could which resulted in him not only showing an aggressive approach with his fists but also using some unclean methods by pushing his opponent to the ground.

Dirrell dominates Gbenga

02/06/201302/02/2013 ESB

By Michael Collins: Last Saturday night, super middleweight Andre Dirrell (21-1, 14 KO’s) showed boxing fans why he was so highly hyped in the past by beating an out of his class 2nd tier fighter Michael Gbenga (14-7, 14 KO’s) by an impressive 10 round unanimous decision at the Convention Center in McAllen, Texas.

The 29-year-old Dirrell, who hadn’t seen action in well over a year, knocked down with a right uppercut to the head in the 9th round, and Dirrell also had Gbenga hurt in the 7th and 10th rounds from blistering right hands.

Gbenga showed good power as well, but he wasn’t able to land many of his shots due to Dirrell ducking or pulling his head away to avoid his power shots. He looked pretty frustrated with his inability to connect.

Dirrell’s hand speed was just as fast as it was when was competing in Showtime’s Super Six tournament in 2009-2010.

Carlos Molina Dominates Cory Spinks

02/02/201302/02/2013 ESB

molina3 By Joe Harrison: Junior middleweight contender Carlos Molina (21-5-2, 6 KOs) defeated former two-division champion Cory Spinks (39-8, 11 KOs) by a unanimous decision in front of 5,354 screaming fans at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago, IL. The contest was the main event on ESPN’s Friday Night Fights.

Spinks showed very little fight as Molina frustrated him with his accurate punches and stellar defensive skills throughout the 12-round IBF eliminator. Spinks simply could not find an answer as Molina pressed forward and bullied him around the ring. Although Spinks was able to land an effective punch here and there, he mostly resorted to clinching to avoid further punishment.

Spinks was deducted a point in round four for excessive holding. Spinks was also dropped by a left hook in round eleven. In round twelve, Spinks received a standing eight count when it was ruled that the ropes held him up from going down again. In the end, the scores were 119-106 twice and 120-105, all for Molina.

Soliman beats Sturm, Kentikian defeats Jah

02/06/201302/01/2013 ESB

By Jeff Sorby: Former WBA Super World middleweight champion Felix Sturm (37-4-2, 16 KO’s) tasted defeat on Friday night in losing a surprising 12 round unanimous decision to 39-year-old Sam Soliman (43-11, 17 KO’s) in an IBF middleweight eliminator bout at the ISS Dome, in Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

The final judges’ scores were 116-111, 114-113 and 114-113. Sturm knocked Soliman down with a hard right hand in the 2nd round, and him in trouble late after almost knocking him down again. However, Sturm stopped throwing as many punches after the 2nd round and that caused the fight to get away from him.

Sturm was still landing the harder punches and tagging Soliman consistently with his jab, but he was letting Soliman out-work him from the 3rd round on. Sturm’ left eye began to swell up after the 5th, and he a lot of problems with Soliman’s unorthodox fighting style.

Last weekend in The Garden the BEST KO nobody saw: Tony Ferrante KO’s Isa Akberbayev

01/29/2013 ESB

Northeast Philadelphia native, Cruiserweight Tony “Boom Boom” Ferrante 13-4 (8 KO’s)was a huge underdog when he faced undefeated cruiserweight prospect Isa Akberbayev 10- 0 (7KO’s) on Saturday January 19th inside the MECCA of boxing, Madison Square Garden. Ferrante recently moved up in weight from light heavyweight to cruiserweight after struggling to cut 38 lbs. in his last fight. Taking the Akberbayev on only 20 days’ notice, Ferrante said he and his new trainer went into combat mode. “We started training right after Christmas. I had always been keeping in shape with my strength and conditioning Coach Sean Thompson, but my boxing coach Mike Cassell had me watching tape, and together we came up with a game plan, not just to win, but to knock the big Russian fighter out.”

The game plan was simple for Ferrante and his team. Make the big man fight small, then take him deep and put him to sleep. Akberbayev was coming off 4 KO’s in a row and was very confident. Ferrante was coming off 2 very tough losses that both went 10 rounds. But Akberbayev had never gone past 6 and team Ferrante were hoping that he would fade.