Amazingly, and proof positive that boxing is flourishing on these shores, the UK can now boast more reigning world champion boxers than any other country in the world. With 13 world rulers – from heavyweight all the way down to super-flyweight – the UK currently has more champs than America (12) and Mexico (8).
The current impressive list of world champions consists of:
Unbeaten Joseph Parker, who captured the vacant WBO heavyweight title at the weekend with a close decision win over Andy Ruiz Jnr, is already looking at his first title defence. Parker and his team want a break first (the 24 year old has had an amazing 15 fights in just three years) but the first defence is being looked at for March or April of next year.
Parker, 22-0(18) was a very interested onlooker as IBF champ Anthony Joshua did the business against challenger Eric Molina and the New Zealander says he will fight AJ “any time he wants or [whenever] I want.” However, it is more likely Parker will defend against Hughie Fury next spring. Parker is confident he can beat either Brit, but the Joshua fight is the big one.
Praise continues to come in, justifiable praise at that, for the quite incredible twelve-round slugfest British heavyweights Dillian Whyte and Dereck Chisora gave us on Saturday night in Manchester. Promoter Eddie Hearn called the give and take, two-way barnburner one of the best heavyweight fights he has ever seen. And this was not mere hyperbole intended to sell tickets – the fight is in the history books now.
However, there could be a part-two – providing the two rivals who knocked lumps out of each other for the full 36 minutes of blistering action have the energy and the desire to go through such hell again – as victor Whyte said yesterday.
Abner Mares, the new WBA Featherweight World Championship boxer (30-2-1, 15 KOs), and Robert Garcia, Boxing trainer who has coached 10 World Champion boxers, celebrate an electric and impressive upset with Mares’ 12-round split decision over defending champion Jesus Cuellar (28-2, 21 KOs) in Los Angeles this past Saturday. The fight was the main event of a SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING doubleheader.
Post-fight both Mares and Garcia reflect on the past year and what is ahead in 2017.
While IBF heavyweight champ Anthony Joshua had an easy time of it in despatching challenger Eric Molina last night, fight fans are finding it harder and harder to shell out good money to see the 18-0(18) star bowl over opponents, one after the other, in easy, even scripted-looking “fights.”
Everyone agrees that AJ is badly in need of a test, but will this test come in his next fight – officially announced in the ring in Manchester last night, for April 29 against former king Wladimir Klitschko – or will the planned Wembley event prove to be yet another disappointment? Previous Joshua foes such as Kevin Johnson, Dillian Whyte, Charles Martin and Molina promised so much going in but, Whyte aside, they all flopped on fight night.
Mexico’s former WBC middleweight champ Julio Cesar Chavez Junior made a successful return to the ring last night as he won a workmanlike ten-round UD over Germany’s Dominik Britsch. Chavez Jnr, now aged 30 and boxing for the first time since July of last year, won by scores of 99-91 on all three cards. Chavez is now 50-2-1(32). Britsch, who gave it a real go, falls to 32-3-1(11).
Chavez made 168 pounds for last night’s fight, his lightest poundage in some time, and he threw plenty of punches and had no apparent stamina issues. Ridding himself of some of the rust he had picked up over the past 17 months, Chavez said after his win how he wants to remain active and “give the fans what they want.”
Jermall Charlo dropped Williams three times, once in the second and twice in the fifth. Williams, who had not lost a round in 10 consecutive fights, went down for the first time in his career from a strong counter left-hand midway through the second round.
Williams, who established his counter right early, performed well for the next two rounds in the first title fight between undefeated 154-pound champions since Floyd Mayweather dismantled Canelo Alvarez in 2013.
Abner Mares (30-2-1, 15 KOs) scored an impressive, upset 12-round split decision over defending champion Jesus Cuellar (28-2, 21 KOs) to capture the WBA Featherweight World Championship and become a four-time boxing titlist Saturday in the main event of a SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING doubleheader.
In the co-feature from Galen Center on the campus of USC in Los Angeles, Jermall Charlo (25-0, 19 KOs) retained his IBF Junior Middleweight World title with an emphatic fifth-round knockout over previously unbeaten, top-ranked Julian “J-Rock” Williams (22-1-1, 14 KOs).
Anthony Joshua extended his perfect record to 18-0 with 18 knockouts in a dominating defense of his IBF Heavyweight World Championship over American challenger Eric Molina Saturday on SHOWTIME from Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.
Joshua floored Molina with a huge left in the third, leaving the Texas native crumpled in the corner. Molina looked dazed and barely beat the count, but he was again in trouble and defenseless seconds later, forcing the referee to halt the contest at 2:02.
TERENCE “Bud” CRAWFORD ended 2016 as he began it — undefeated. But that was the only thing that remained the same in another breakout year for one of boxing’s top pound for pound stars and Fighter of the Year candidate. Crawford (30-0, 21 KOs), of Omaha, Neb., began the year making his debut at the Mecca of Boxing, Madison Square Garden on February 27, where he stopped Top-10 contender Hank Lundy in the fifth round, successfully defending his World Boxing Organization (WBO) junior welterweight title for the second time in four months. It was only the second time Lundy had ever been knocked out in his 10-year, 33-bout career. Coincidentally, it was John Molina Jr. who scored the other knockout of Lundy back in 2010.