By Bill Phanco: WBA World junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (26-0, 14 KO’s) is waiting to find out if Golden Boy Promotions will allow him to fight one of their most prized assets with their promotional company WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) and Trout sees a lot of flaws in the young 22-year-old Alvarez’s game that he thinks he can take advantage of if Golden Boy gives him the chance to face the young Mexican champion.
Trout said to RingTV.com “I don’t know [who I’ll be fighting next]…We’re in the Canelo sweepstakes…for May 4.”
Golden Boy has really lucked out with Canelo because the red-haired Mexican fighter is hugely popular in Mexico despite the fact that he’s faced a lot of old fighters and almost zero junior middleweights. It’s kind of strange to see a champion having fought almost no real junior middleweights even though he’s the WBC 154 pound champion.
Golden Boy doesn’t have to do much with Canelo in terms of match-making because his Mexican fan base tune in to all of his fights even if he’s facing a 40-year-old welterweight. This is why Trout may not win the Canelo sweepstakes because Golden Boy doesn’t have to put him in with guys from his own division in order for him to still get good ratings.
By Rob Smith: Former WBC heavyweight champion Oleg Maskaev (37-7, 28 KO’s) didn’t look half bad in defeating Owen Beck (29-12, 20 KO’s) by a 3rd round TKO on Sunday night at the Sports Palace in Moscow, Russia. Maskaev put Beck down three times in the fight in stopping him in the 3rd round at 2:59.
By Michael Collins: WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) has had two opportunities to face unbeaten Adrien Broner (25-0, 21 KO’s) and on both occasions he chose not to face him. The first time was last year when Burns held the WBO super featherweight title and Broner was in line to face him as his mandatory challenger.
By Rob Smith: In an interview, Bob Arum confirmed what pretty much everyone already knew that he’s going to look to put his fighter Manny Pacquiao back in the ring with Juan Manuel Marquez in 2013 if he can put the fight together.
By James Slater – Welsh warrior Gavin Rees was understandably disappointed when his scheduled December rumble with John Murray fell apart due to the Manchester man failing a pre-fight medical, and the only thing that kept his spirits up was his promoter Eddie Hearn’s vow to get him a major title fight in early 2013. Well, Hearn (for my money 2012’s boxing promoter of the year) has delivered: getting “The Rock” a February 16th shot at reigning WBC lightweight king and current hotshot Adrien Broner.
By Jeff Sorby: Former WBO/WBC middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik isn’t too happy about losing out on his fight with WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward, who had to pull out of his scheduled February 23rd fight after hurting his right shoulder in training.