(Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime) In a very entertaining scrap, WBA interim Welterweight title holder Keith “One Time” Thurman slugged it out with hard-nosed fight veteran Jesus Soto Karass en route to stopping his fearless challenger in the ninth round of the scheduled twelve round championship contest.
Despite getting the hard earned victory, the heavily favored title holder was rocked and almost floored with a hard right hook from mid-range that caught Thurman flush on the jaw in the opening moments of the fight.
Although the defending champ regained his composure midway through the first stanza, Keith was forced to use lateral movement and show the underrated Mexican volume puncher some angles at a much earlier point in the fight than most had ever anticipated.
In a clear candidate for “upset of the year” and “fight of the year”, Marcos Maidana (35-3, 31 KOs) lifted the WBA Welterweight title from Adrien Broner (27-1, 22 KOs) in a thrilling twelve round unanimous decision victory.
This afternoon from the Farmers Market in downtown San Antonio, Texas, WBA Welterweight Champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner and former IBF Junior Welterweight Champion Marcos “El Chino” Maidana participated in the official preliminary weigh-in event and posed for the capacity filled venue of media members and fight fans.
Photo: Esther Lin/SHOWTIME – The old saying “If you build it they will come” rings true for boxing. 
Every great trainer throughout boxing’s storied history has insisted that fights are won and lost in the gym. If the age old adage is indeed true, former IBF Junior Welterweight Champion Marcos Maidana could be in serious trouble this weekend.
It was in January of 2013 that I first met the Fury family. I’d just beaten the snow out of the UK by twelve hours and was sitting in a freezing Dutch ferry terminal waiting for a lift from Peter Fury – a man I’d never met – to spend a week in the famous Fury training camp in Belgium. The Ferry ride had been tortuous; high seas and an even higher crew had meant a sleepless night and much paranoia. I was the first writer or journalist to ever set foot in the remote Fury HQ. It was a land few had even considered. Rumours of the harshness of the camp had reached my ears, but there was little in the way of facts. I had to see for myself, for good or ill. Two and a half months later, Tyson Fury would bamboozle the American press, beat Steve Cunningham without Peter in his corner, and sing to a bemused Madison Square Garden crowd. I wasn’t to blame.
After impressively knocking out formerly undefeated Junior Middleweight Glen Tapia this past Saturday night on HBO’s Boxing After Dark, could James Kirkland (32-1, 28 KOs) be looking at an immediate title opportunity in 2014?
Anand G. (San Antonio, TX): Manny Pacquiao is now the mandatory challenger for Floyd Mayweather’s WBC strap. How do you see this set of negotiations going between the two camps now that there’s a governing body both men respect at the center of it?
The World Series of Boxing (“WSB”), which is run by the International Boxing Association, is in its fourth season of bringing together some of the best up and coming amateur pugilists in the world who look to gain additional experience and skills while at the same time, earn money and still maintain their Olympic eligibility, before they begin their professional careers. More importantly, the WSB gives boxing an opportunity to develop a well-organized and highly competitive farm system that the sport desperately needs, allowing it to obtain better fighters and more entertaining matchups for its fans at the professional level. 
After having endured 21-months of frustration and inactivity (both at least partly brought on by himself), always-exciting southpaw slugger James Kirkland returned to doing what he does best last night in Atlantic City: giving fans of a slugfest just what they want. In brutalizing a brave and previously unbeaten Glen Tapia, Kirkland came back in a quite roaring fashion.