LUCAS “BIG DADDY” BROWNE has fast earned a reputation as one of the heavyweight division’s hard hitters, but he won’t necessarily be looking for an early finish this Friday night.
The unbeaten Australian banger faces Masataka Takehara at Lions in Richlands, Queensland and knows he’s likely to have a tough bout on his hands.
By Jeff Sorby: WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) has decided to pull out of the May 4th card on Showtime/CBS pay per view after failing to get Floyd Mayweather Jr. to agree to fight him on September 14th. That was the condition that the 22-year-old Canelo set for Mayweather Jr. in order to fight on his undercard and help pump up the PPV numbers.
So instead of Canelo fighting on May 4th, he’ll be fighting on April 20th in a non-PPV bout on regular Showtime against WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (26-0, 14 KO’s), says Dan Rafael of ESPN. For boxing fans, this is a really good deal because they won’t have to pay to see Canelo fight other than signing up for Showtime if they don’t currently have it.
By James Stillerman: Junior lightweight pugilist, Ryan “The Polish Prince” Kielczweski (15-0, 3KOs) looks to keep his undefeated record intact as he takes on Gil “La Metrealleta” Garcia (5-3-1, 1KO) in a eight round bout at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, CT on Friday March 1st. This fight is on the undercard of the main event of Billy Dib vs. Evgeny Gradovich and will be televised on ESPN Friday Night Fights.
By James Stillerman: Super bantamweight fighter, Luis “KO King” Rosa Jr. (12-0, 6KOs) looks move up in his weight class as he takes on the always dangerous, Jhovany Collado, (4-6-2, 1KO) in a eight round bout at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, CT on Friday March 1st. His fight is on the undercard of the main event of Billy Dib vs. Evgeny Gradovic and will be televised on ESPN Friday Night Fights.
By Marc Livitz: Washington, D.C. has experienced its fair sum of sporting heartbreak over the years. The hot air which surrounds the views of many concerning the home of United States politics can sometimes get in the way of a good night at the fights. Alas, heat rises and eventually settles. The same can be said for the state of a practitioner of the sweet science who is just a hanging chad away from eventual stardom in his own right and in his own light. Lamont Peterson recently made his case to get back on the road to a championship this past Friday in the little town on the Potomac. He had to wait over a year to get back into the ring after winning the light welterweight title from Amir Khan in late 2011.
Peterson, of course had his WBA title stripped away from him last year and saw his lucrative payday in the form of a May 2012 rematch with Khan go up in flames after he tested positive for synthetic testosterone.
By Jeff Sorby: Former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (27-3, 19 KO’s) will be facing Julio Diaz (40-7-1, 29 KO’s) on April 27th as the co-feature for the Zab Judah vs. Danny Garcia fight in a split-site card on Showtime, according to RingTV. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer came up with the idea to increase the strength of the two fights put lumping them together.
The Khan-Diaz fight will be tape delayed from the Motorpoint Arena, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom. That fight will take place earlier in the day U.S time, but be then televised later in the evening on Saturday night in the U.S on Showtime. The Judah-Garcia fight will take place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
by Geoffrey Ciani – In the sport of boxing it is not uncommon to see a truly great boxer hang around for too long. This largely stems from the fact that it takes a very special athlete with an unrelenting mindset to excel and become a dominant world champion. Among other things, it takes courage, confidence, determination, and the ability to maintain one’s composure and overcome adversity in the heat of battle. It also requires a great deal of consistency, dedication, and sheer willpower. These are key ingredients in the mental makeup of any elite fighter. Unfortunately, these very same traits that enable standout boxers to regularly succeed at the highest level are also the exact same that can get them into trouble later in their careers when their physical tools have eroded. Remarkable champions throughout boxing history have often suffered this fate, and Roy Jones Junior represents a good recent example.
Bernard Hopkins just turned 48 in January. That is considered old in any professional sport, and by boxing standards it is absolutely ancient. Nevertheless, even at age 48, Bernard Hopkins still remains a formidable force. He is not some old gatekeeper just looking to cash out on his name. He is actually still competing at a championship level and always making strong accounts of himself. Sure, he has suffered some losses, and he has also begun to show his age a bit more with each passing year. But to this day, Bernard Hopkins has still never been dominated inside the squared circle, and for someone who has been campaigning at an elite level since early-on in the first term of former President Bill Clinton—well, that is an absolute marvel! It is simply mindboggling stuff.
By Kevin Chittenden: Floyd Mayweather Jr’s May 4th card could take a big hit if WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) chooses to pull out of the card and fight on another date. Canelo was supposed to be the co-main event in a fight against WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout, but Canelo reportedly wants a guarantee from Mayweather that he’ll fight him on September 14th.
Canelo won’t sign for the May 4th fight date unless he receives that guarantee, and it doesn’t look like Mayweather is going to go that. It was thought that Mayweather would fight Canelo in September, but maybe he has other ideas or possibly he doesn’t like the idea of Canelo trying to force the fight instead of letting Mayweather select him.
By Bill Phanco: WBO welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (29-0, 12 KO’s) will finally get back in the ring to make his first defense of his title against ESPN fighter Ruslan Provodnikov (22-1, 15 KO’s) on March 16th at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California.
By Jeff Sorby: It looks like IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (59-3, 50 KO’s) has decided to defend his title against the unbeaten sleepy-eyed Francesco Pianeta (28-0-1, 15 KO’s) on May 4th at the SAP-Arena in Mannheim, Germany.
This is an optional title defense for the 36-year-old Wladimir, so it was a given that he was going to face a weak opponent, but it seems like Wladimir’s last three title defenses have been optional because the opponents have been so weak. Pianeta, #9 WBO, #12 WBA, is technically undefeated, but his resume is incredibly poor and without one quality opponent among his 28 victories.