Former world champion Brandon Rios (34-3-1, 24 KOs) returned to the ring with a seventh round TKO of Mexico’s Aaron Herrera (23-7-1, 14 KOs) in the main event of Premier Boxing Champions on FS1 and FOX Deportes Sunday night from The Pioneer Event Center in Lancaster, California.
(Photo credit: Nabeel Ahmad/Premier Boxing Champions)
“I had that good nervous feeling tonight, like before my pro debut,” said Rios. “I was a little jittery but it felt good in there.”
The great, the fascinating, the exciting and the controversial boxing career of Mike Tyson officially ended today – in Washington DC of all places. Tyson was an ageing, past his best former champ in June of 2005, fighting only for money, yet it was still one huge shocker when the somewhat clumsy, somewhat unheralded, somewhat slow and lumbering Kevin McBride forced the 39 year old to quit on his stool after six rounds.
New Yorker Danny Jacobs, last seen pushing feared world middleweight king Gennady Golovkin very hard indeed, all the way to the end of the 12th and final round in March, might next be seen boxing on the under-card of Golovkin’s mega-fight with Canelo Alvarez.
According to a short news piece on ESPN.com, talks are currently underway between Golden Boy and Al Haymon. So far Jacobs’ opponent, if he does indeed box on the card, is TBA. It would of course help make the big September 16 show even bigger if Jacobs, arguably the world’s second best middleweight, appeared on the Las Vegas card.
After years of struggling to get the top names to agree to step into the ring with him, middleweight king Gennady Golovkin finally gets his defining fight in September, when he will, as all fight fans know, rumble with Mexican superstar Saul Canelo Alvarez.
Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler was right there with his fighter, trying to get the big fights, the important fights, and now, as he pointed out when speaking with The Las Vegas Review-Journal, the GGG-Canelo Super-Fight will take place almost five years to the day that Golovkin boxed on HBO for the very first time. Loeffler said that during the years 2012 to recently, he experienced serious reluctance from name fighters, fighters who wanted no part of his fighter; this type of reluctance being a new thing for the promoter.
Ryan Burnett (17-0, 9 KOs) battered IBF World bantamweight champion Lee Haskins (34-0, 14 KOs) for 12 round rounds on Saturday night to win an impressive 12 round split decision at the SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland. One judge had it for Haskins by the score 118-108. The other 2 judges saw Burnett as the better fighter of the two in giving him the win by the scores 119-107, 119-107.
Friday night in Bergen, Norway, “The First Lady of Boxing”, CECILIA BRAEKHUS, (31-0-0, 8 KO’s), was victorious once again defending all five major welterweight world titles (WBC/WBA/WBO/IBF/IBO), over current WBC Junior Welterweight World Champion ERICA “La Pantera” FARIAS, (24-2-0, 10 KO’s), of Buenos Aires, in front of a massive crowd at the country’s major concert venue, Bergenhus Fortress – Koengen.
Is the upcoming July fight between superstar Manny Pacquiao and unbeaten but somewhat little-known Jeff Horn a mere formality, a fight that has only one winner? Horn and all of Australia are hugely excited about the fight and the belief is high that puncher Horn can pull off the upset; but everywhere else, it seems, the sure winner is Pac Man.
Semi-retired superstar Floyd Mayweather Junior is back in the gym, sparring ahead of his still to be signed (by him) but fully expected September “Super-Fight” with MMA great Conor McGregor. As per The Mirror, the 40-year-old with the 49-0 pro record yesterday sparred six rounds with unbeaten 18-year-old hot lightweight prospect Devin Haney.
Undefeated super lightweight Regis Prograis made an emphatic statement Friday on ShoBox: The New Generation, knocking down previously undefeated Joel Diaz Jr. four times in the second round as he stamped his arrival as a legitimate contender in the 140-pound division.
Irish-based former heavyweight contender Mike Perez is raring to go tomorrow night, when he will box his cruiserweight debut. Tipping in at a ripped and ready 198-pounds – an incredibly low poundage when we recall how, as a heavyweight, “The Rebel” fought well into the 240s – Perez, 21-2-1(13) will box for the first time since his unexpectedly quick (1st round) stoppage loss to Alexander Povetkin in May of 2015.