Wladimir Klitschko stops Pianeta in 6th round

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IBO/IBF/WBO/IBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (60-3, 51 KOs) toyed with his former sparring partner Francesco Pianeta (28-1-1, 15 KOs) in knocking him down three times in stopping him in the 6th round on Saturday night at the SAP Arena in Mannheim, Germany. The end of the fight came from a left-right-left combination from Wladimir that sent the 6’5″ Pianeta down on the canvas on all fours. Although Pianeta got back to his feet, the referee chose to halt the fight anyway due to Pianeta staggering after getting back up.

Wladimir knocked Pianeta down in the 5th with a left hook to the head. In the 4th, Wladimir knocked Pianeta down with a jab followed by a straight right to the head.

The fight resembled a sparring session rather than an actual fight due to Wladimir fighting in a relaxed way, hitting the slow moving Pianeta at will with jabs and right hands to the head. Pianeta had the size, but not the reach to land his shots. When he would attempt to come forward to land his punches, Wladimir would immediately back away leaving Pianeta throwing shots in the air.

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Lucas Browne Outpoints James Toney, Kevin Johnson Stops Solomon Haumono

Lucas ‘Big Daddy’ Browne (16-0, 14 KOs) outpointed American legend James ‘Lights Out’ Toney (74-8-3, 45 KOs) over 12 rounds to capture the World Boxing Foundation heavyweight title at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre this afternoon in Melbourne, Australia.

The first half of the fight saw an interesting contest with the shorter Toney starting positively looking to attack Browne with Browne using his range to set up power shot opportunities. Toney caught Browne with some good right hands in round five while Browne used his jab to great effect to keep Toney at bay for the most part of each round, to rack up points with the judges. Browne’s heavy hands always seemed to look threatening but the Australian respected Toney’s defensive nous and opted against being overly aggressive.

The second half of the fight saw Browne continue to use his size to control the smaller Toney whilst Toney reduced his offensive output which saw Browne take the later rounds to record a 117-111, 119-109 and 120-108 victory on the three judge’s scorecards.

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Sergio Martinez decisions Martin Murray

martinez66Fighting with an injured left hand from the 8th round, WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (51-2-2, 28 KO’s) had to battle a lot harder than many boxing fans expected him to in beating Martin Murray (25-1-1, 11 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision tonight in front of a huge crowd of 50,000 at the Club Atlético Vélez Sarsfield in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Murray might have won the fight if he had come out of his defensive shell more often in the fight, as he seemed to adopt the same approach that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez used in his recent fight with Austin Trout in not throwing many punches but counting on his cleaner landing shots to make up the difference for him getting hit a lot more.

Murray could have won but he wasn’t throwing enough and he kept getting nailed by jabs and straight left hands over and over again. Murray was able to block a lot of the shots because he was keeping his gloves high protecting his head, but when one fighter is seen hitting the other all night long on the gloves, it doesn’t matter that a lot of the shots were blocked. Martinez was the busier guy and he deserved the victory. The judges scored it 115-112, 115-112 and 115-112.

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Bermane Stiverne bests Chris Arreola

arreola43 A rowdy crowd rocked the house at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, California tonight; as local heavyweight Chris Arreola faced Haitian born Canadian Bermane Stiverne in front of a partisan crowd. Things started quickly and developed into one of the best heavyweight scraps we’ve seen in a while.

Neither man wasted time as both men threw big shots in the first round. The difference was Arreola’s pressure; he never stopped coming forward and backed his opponent into the ropes several times. Stiverne attempted to counter and was moderately successful, but let himself get trapped in the corner and ate a few combos. Arreola continued the pressure in the second and worked both downstairs and upstairs. However, Stiverne showed better movement and landed some nice counters. Things appeared to be evening out.

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Khan defeats Diaz; Wilder KOs Harrison in 1!

Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) had to get up off the deck to defeat former IBF lightweight champion Julio Diaz (40-8-1, 29 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Motorpoint Arena in Sheffield, UK. Khan was hurt five times in the fight, and knocked down in the 4th by a left hook. In rounds 8 though 11, Khan was badly staggered by heard shots from Diaz. It was only through the use of Khan’s holding and pulling down on the back of Diaz’s head that he was able to survive those rounds. The final judges’ scores were 114-113, 115-113, 115-112. I had Diaz winning rounds 3, 4, 8, 9, 10 and 11. In other words, I had Diaz winning the fight.>

Khan controlled the action in rounds one and two. Diaz fought well in rounds three and four in landing heavy shots. After Khan was knocked down in the 4th, he came back to fight well in the 5th through 7th rounds, albeit using a lot of questionable tactics like pulling down on Diaz’s head and holding his left arm out far in front of him so that Diaz couldn’t get close. From the 8th round to 11th, Diaz had Khan hurt in each of these rounds, but Khan did a good job of holding on and running.

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Garcia defeats Judah; Quillin defeats Guerrero in mismatch

Garcia defeats Judah; Quillin defeats Guerrero in mismatch

35-year-old Zab Judah (42-8, 29 KO’s) gave it a good shot tonight but in the end he was beaten by WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (26-0, 16 KO’s) in a 12 round unanimous decision loss at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Judah was in command of the fight in the last three rounds of the fight, but unfortunately for him he ran out of time and ended losing. The scores were 115-112, 114-112, 116-111.

Garcia fought well in the first 8 rounds in using his right hand to do most of the damage. Judah did a good job of neutralizing Garcia’s left hook and jab. Garcia’s right hand proved to be enough for him to control the rounds and build up a big lead. However, the crowd seemed to motivate Judah to another level starting in the 9th round when he was able to land some really big shots that stopped Garcia in his tracks.

Judah continued to land the far bigger punches in rounds 10, 11 and 12 to dominate the rounds. Garcia kept firing back, but his punches weren’t nearly as significant as Judah’s.

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Canelo-Trout Post-Fight Press Conference Interviews and Photos

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San Antonio, TX finished its eventful boxing week on 04/20/13 Saturday night in front of nearly 40,000 fans at the Alamodome. The televised bouts of the Showtime Championship Boxing telecast included two fights that showed the reason why the fans came out to pack the venue.

The co-main event included a 1st round domination by Omar “Panterita” Figueroa, Jr. over Puerto Rican Abner Cotto. The thrilling first round included a knockdown of Abner Cotto halfway through the round. That exciting moment led to a culmination of the fight with “Panterita’s” vicious left hand body shot that sent Cotto to the ground towards the end of the round. Cotto was unable to survive the body shot as the referee completed a full ten count. This was definitely Figueroa’s coming out party as one of the rising stars in the lighter weights.

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2013 New Jersey Golden Glove Finals Results

This past Saturday night for the second year in a row The New Jersey Golden Gloves Finals were held at Newark’s Prudential Center Arena. The winners in these contests move up to representing New Jersey in the National Golden Gloves Tournament. The evening’s program consisted of 14 bouts. These bouts as per amateur boxing standards are three rounds of 2 minutes per round. The enthusiasm and heart of these young athletes provided rousing entertainment. There were numerous boxing celebrities in attendance.

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Tyson Fury Wins Over Cunningham But Not the Fans

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Tyson Fury will get annihlated by either of the Klitschko brothers. He demonstrated very little in the way of boxing skills against Cunningham. Instead, he used his tremendous 6′ 9″ size advantage to mug his much smaller foe. On a 0-10 talent scale, boxing fans would be hard pressed to give him a score that would crack mid point. His bellowing, and worse yet his post-fight singing, completely turned off fans at Madison Square Garden Theater. His actions failed to generate any great desire in fans to rush out and buy a ticket to see him fight Vitali or Wladimir. That’s because fans know any such matchup will result in a reverberating quake picked up on the Richter Scale that will result when his big body crashes to the canvas.

Saturday night fans couldn’t help but feel sorry for Steve Cunningham. He wasn’t on the losing end of the seventh round stoppage, so much as he was a victim of a back alley New York City mugging. Tyson did so much pushing, shoving, elbowing and leaning on his smaller foe that Referee Eddie Cotton couldn’t keep track of all of the offenses. He needed a “clicker” to keep count of all of the fouls.

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