2014/2015 – Reviews & Previews: Mayweather, Pacquiao, Cotto, Canelo, Bradley, Golovkin, & Khan!

12/31/201412/30/2014 Vivek Wallace

FLOYD MAYWEATHER

2014 will end as one of Mayweather’s more intriguing chapters of his 18 year career. After closing out 2013 with an amazing performance over Mexico’s Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, Mayweather entered 2014 on a high. Unfortunately, a love life gone bad, assisted by other personal drama’s would only serve as a small subplot compared to what would unfold on the night of May 3rd, 2014. Mayweather would dig deep and create a path to victory, but a rugged performance by Maidana proved that even the great ones have reason to fear ‘father-time’.

Kell Brook’s next fight will be announced next week, says Hearn

12/30/2014 Jeff Sorby

IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn says he’ll be announcing Brook’s next fight next week. Brook plans on fighting in March of 2015, and one possible opponent is his IBF mandatory challenger Jo Jo Dan (34-2, 18 KOs). This would enable Brook to take a nice stay busy fight because Dan has very little punching power to speak of, and he’s a big step down from Brook’s last opponent Shawn Porter.

Hearn says that he has some other fighters that he’s looking at as a potential opponent for Brook. However, Hearn seems to be leaning in the direction of making the Brook-Dan fight now. Hearn said that he’d like to try and match Brook with Floyd Mayweather Jr later in the year in September 2015.

Khan giving Mayweather to mid-January to start negotiations

12/30/2014 Bill Phanco

Amir Khan is reportedly giving Floyd Mayweather Jr a deadline of mid-January to start the negotiation process or else he’ll start looking at other alternatives for his next fight. Khan has been waiting around for a fight with Mayweather since 2013, and he’s been largely ignored by the popular fighter.

That hasn’t stopped Khan from pursuing him for a fight, but it seems to have backfired because Mayweather has shown little interest in facing the 28-year-old Khan. Either Khan hasn’t been fighting the right guys that would make him a popular enough fighter to interest Mayweather, or there’s some other reason that Mayweather isn’t telling.

Cotto’s adviser says $40 million offer to fight Mayweather is false

12/30/2014 Rob Smith

Gaby Penagaricano, the adviser for WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto, says that the rumor of Cotto receiving a $40 million offer to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr is false. There was no such offer made. On Sunday, there was a rumor that Mayweather’s adviser Al Haymon had offered Cotto $40 million to fight Mayweather next.

It was a crazy rumor because there was no way that an offer of that size would work given the huge $30 million+ that Mayweather typically gets for his fights. A rematch between Cotto and Mayweather wouldn’t bring in over 2 million buys like the Mayweather vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight, and it would be lucky to do more than 1 million pay-per-view buys, because a lot of boxing fans would likely not be interested in seeing a second fight between them.

Mayweather an option for Cotto if he doesn’t face Canelo

12/29/2014 T.Baker

Floyd Mayweather Jr could slide in and snatch Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s hoped for mega-fight against WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto on May 2nd. Cotto’s adviser Gaby Peñagarícano is saying that Mayweather is a potential option for Cotto. Mayweather’s adviser Al Haymon has allegedly offered Cotto $40 million to take the Mayweather fight.

This offer hasn’t been confirmed by Mayweather or Peñagarícano though. It would obviously be tough for Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions to match an offer of this kind if it turns out to be true.

De La Hoya sees Canelo replacing Mayweather and Pacquiao as boxing’s top PPV star

12/28/2014 Jeff Sorby

Oscar De La Hoya, the President of Golden Boy Promotions, believes that his fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) will be the guy that takes the baton from Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao to replace them as boxing’s No.1 pay-per-view attraction once those two fighters retire.

It’s interesting that De La Hoya believes that the 24-year-old Canelo will be the guy that will be taking over as the top PPV star because there are many boxing fans who believe that he deserves to have three losses on his resume, not just one to Mayweather.

Quillin sees Golovkin fight as not worth the risk

12/28/2014 Rob Smith

If you were hoping to see former WBO middleweight champion Peter Quillin (31-0, 22 KOs) face WBA 160 pound champion Gennady Golovkin in the near future, you might want to forget about it. Quillin, 31, said that Golovkin is too high of a risk without much of a reward right now because the money isn’t there.

Quillin wants to fight guys that bring him good money, and in the case of Golovkin it wouldn’t bring the kind of money that it might later on. Quillin acknowledges that Golovkin has a big name right now, but he thinks that his name doesn’t bring the big money yet.

David Haye promises to return in top form in 2015

12/27/2014 Jeff Sorby

Former two division world champion David Haye (26-2, 24 KOs) says his surgically repaired right shoulder is strong and he’s punching harder than ever. Haye, now 34, says he’ll be returning to the ring in 2015 to start his comeback to try and get a title shot against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.

Haye lost his WBA title to Wladimir three years ago in 2011 in a one-sided fight. Haye looked too small for the 6’6”, 245 pound Wladimir, and the fight ended up being totally one-sided. At 6’3”, 210 pounds, Haye is more of a cruiserweight sized heavyweight than an actual heavyweight.

Does Sergey Kovalev deserve Fighter of the Year for 2014?

12/27/2014 Kevin Chittenden

Recently, ESPN named Terence Crawford as their Fighter of the Year for 2014 due to his wins over Raymundo Beltran, Yuriorkis Gamboa and Ricky Burns. However, only the Gamboa fight was truly interesting to watch, and the Burns fight really proved nothing given how poor Burns has looked since then.

Gamboa is really a pumped up featherweight who had no business fighting in the lightweight division against a fighter the size of Crawford. The Crawford-Beltran fight was not an interesting fight to watch due to Crawford’s constantly clinching each time Beltran would get in position to throw a punch. It was not great television, believe me.

The Khan Job

12/27/2014 Yero Moody

Growing up watching Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Julio Cesar Chavez, Sr., Pernell Whitaker, and a whole host of other great fighters, it is truly agonizing to watch the sport of boxing become a spectacle; not unlike “Dancing with the Stars”. Fighters avoiding their toughest foes and boxing promoters creating a circus-like atmosphere just to boost pay-per-view sales.

Love him or hate him, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. has set the tone for the new breed of fast-talking, cocky, self-promoting fighters. What separates Mayweather from most of his emulating peers is a tremendous skill set and dedication to his craft. Many of today’s young boxing stars lack the skill set to match their boastful banter.