Ray Flores
First of all, I want to send a Happy New Year to all the media and everyone that is joining us on the conference call. I’m really excited about Fight Week on FOX in Los Angeles. I could not think of a better way to kick off 2016 than the fight that we have on January 23 at STAPLES Center promoted by TGB Promotions.
LUCAS “BIG DADDY” BROWNE says he’s fitter than ever and ready to make history.
The 36-year-old Australia aims to become his nation’s first ever world heavyweight champion when he squares off with WBA kingpin Ruslan Chagaev in Grozny, Chechnya on March 5.
By Carlos Ortiz: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (35-0, 34 KOs) says he’s going to send challenger Artur “Szpila The Pin” Szpilka (20-1, 15 KOs) to heaven this Saturday night in their Showtime televised fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Deontay says he doesn’t want to send Szpilka to hell like in the movies. He says all he wants to do is KO the 26-year-old “Pinhead” and send him to heaven in the process.
When it came time for undefeated junior welterweight world champion Terence Crawford to find a suitable opponent for his first title defense of 2016, only one of the so-called top 140-pounders in the world answered the challenge.
Philadelphia’s “Hammerin'” Hank Lundy, boxing’s most feared road warrior, will get his long-overdue title shot Saturday, Feb. 27th, 2016 against the unbeaten Crawford in the 12-round main event of HBO’s World Championship Boxing doubleheader at The Theater at Madison Square Garden for Crawford’s World Boxing Organization (WBO) title.
By Carlos Ortiz: In a fight that would surely catch the imagination of the boxing world, there is a possibility that 42-year-old Mexican star Juan Manuel Marquez (57-7-2, 42 KOs) could return to the ring for a huge fight against 35-year-old middleweight Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) in 2016.
Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach likes the idea of Cotto fighting Marquez. It’s a fight that makes sense on many levels. Cotto was just beaten by a much larger Saul “Canelo” Alvarez last November, and there are no real big money fights for Cotto right now. What Cotto is looking at is a lot of difficult fights against younger lions that wouldn’t give him the kind of money that he received in his fight against Canelo.
By Carlos Ortiz: David Haye (26-2, 24 KOs) will be clearing over three years of ring rust out of his systems this Saturday night in fighting Mark De Mori (30-1-2, 26 KOs) at the O2 Arena in London, UK. This is small step for the 35-year-old Haye, whose goal is to reclaim the heavyweight championship of the world.
Haye wants to win all the belts in the division, and he’s ready to face champions Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder and face the winner of the Vyachaslav Glaszkov – Charles Martin fight. Along the way, Haye wants to take the popular British heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua’s scalp and add it to his collection of big names he’s beaten during his career.
By Carlos Ortiz: Unbeaten light heavyweight Sullivan Barrera is hoping to get a fight against former WBA 168lb champion in March. However, Ward, 31, is starting to make noises on Twitter saying that Barrera won’t be getting rich off him by getting a fight against him. Ward says there is no contract with Barrera, and he does not have any idea who his next opponent will be for March 26 on HBO.
The way Ward is talking, it’s giving many boxing fans the belief that he does not fancy the idea of fighting Barrera and would prefer another fight. Barrera’s trainer Abel Sanchez doesn’t know who Ward can fight in the light heavyweight division that will make a statement, and he feels that Ward lacks the courage to take on Barrera.
By Carlos Ortiz: While the main event of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley 3 rematch may not be a big deal for April 9th, the potential co-feature bout between WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham and Gilberto Ramirez (33-0, 24 KOs) could be a good one if Top Rank promoter Bob Arum can get the fight made. The Pacquiao-Bradley 3 fight card will be televised on HBO pay-per-view from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The two fighters fought each other twice before with Bradley winning the first fight in 2012, and Pacquiao winning the second fight in 2014.
Arum promotes the 24-year-old Ramirez and he believes he’s not only capable of beating the 35-year-old Abraham, but also becoming a star along the same lines as Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Ramirez has the size, power and the movie star looks to be another Canelo, but it still remains to be seen whether he can accomplish the same things as the red-haired Mexican star.
David Deron Haye – born in Bermondsey, London, England, on 13th October, 1980, to an English mother and a Jamaican father – is one of the finest British boxers of the 21st century so far.
A talented amateur, Haye won a silver medal at the world championships in 2001, before turning professional in 2002. His victory over Jean Marc Mormeck in France in 2007, is one of the rare occasions a Briton has won a Ring Magazine title on foreign soil.
Interim WBA super middleweight champion Vincent Feigenbutz (21-2, 19 KOs) fell apart tonight in getting beaten by 31-year-old Italian Giovanni De Carolis (24-6, 12 KOs) by an 11th round technical knockout in their rematch at the Baden Arena in Offenburg, Germany. De Carolis, #14 WBA, unloaded on the 20-year-old Feigenbutz with a series of power shots in the 11th round to get the TKO victory. The fight was stopped by referee Gustavo Padilla at :32 of the round.
Feigenbutz probably should have taken a knee to try and clear his head after getting hurt, but he was too out of it to think clearly. Feigenbutz fought like he wasn’t thinking too clearly from the 1st round, as he let the fight get out of hand early with De Carolis getting off to a big lead in the first half of the fight by simply being the busier fighter. Feigenbutz came back a little bit in the 2nd half of the fight in throwing some nice power shots that connected. He was fighting more for survival at that point.