The highly anticipated showdown between undefeated unified WBA/WBC/IBF middleweight world champion Gennady Golovkin and lineal middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez took place this past Saturday in Las Vegas. While the fight may not have lived up to its lofty expectations, it wound up being a very good competitively fought encounter. But despite that, the fight still wound up disappointing a large portion of fans, when it was controversially ruled a draw.
There are a few big fight cards still to come this year, but the biggest year end card that will close out what has been a good year for the sport overall could well be the one we fans will get on November 4. It has been confirmed that WBC heavyweight ruler Deontay Wilder will defend his belt against Luis Ortiz, at Barclays Centre, New York, with Showtime to televise.
A seemingly guaranteed can’t-miss shoot-out between two undefeated proven punchers, Wilder is likely to get the stiffest, most testing fight of his entire career to date. Wilder is hugely confident and deserves credit for taking such a big risk. As for Cuba’s Ortiz, he too deserves credit for taking this fight when he could have simply sat and waited for his mandatory shot at the WBA title currently held by Anthony Joshua.
In sad news, it has been reported how David Bey, a top contender and a world heavyweight title challenger in the 1980s, has passed away. According to a report on Action News, Bey died in Camden as result of an industrial accident. Bey, just 60 years old, was working as Pyle driver with local carpenters and he was reportedly hit by a steel sheet Pyle.
World Boxing Super Series action will hit the United States for the first time this week as the Yunier Dorticos vs. Dmitry Kudryashov quarter-final showdown lights up the ring this Saturday, September 23 from the Alamodome in San Antonio.
This will be the third straight week of WBSS quarter-final action after Callum Smith impressively got the super middleweight tournament underway by dropping and beating previously unbeaten Erik Skoglund Saturday in Liverpool. The tournament kicked-off in spectacular fashion one week prior to that with unbeaten star Oleksandr Usyk delivering a TKO victory Marco Huck in Germany in the first cruiserweight quarter-final.
We’ve been treated to some big, big fights this year, but the best may be still to come; as pound-for-pound stars and former amateur greats Vasyl Lomachenko and Guillermo Rigondeaux are gearing up for their truly fascinating December 9 meeting.
Last seen putting in a quite dire effort against countryman Canelo Alvarez in May in a big fight that disappointed all concerned, Julio Cesar Chavez Junior has tweeted how he is set to return to the ring on November 11. The former WBC middleweight champ left the ring to the sound of boos after his lopsided, he-failed-to-turn-up decision loss to Canelo, and he now aims to get fight fans back on his side with a win over former 168 pound champ Anthony Dirrell.
Undefeated IBO/WBA/WBC/IBF middleweight titleholder Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) got robbed in another horrible decision, which unfortunately has become a common problem in boxing, as he settled for a twelve-round split-decision draw against lineal and Ring middleweight titleholder Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs). Adalaide Byrd rendered a horrific 118-110 scorecard for Canelo, Dave Moretti scored it 115-113 for GGG, while Don Trella had it 114-114, despite the fact that Golovkin aggressively backed up Canelo for the entire bout, was the much more active fighter, and out landed him by forty-nine punches.
Rarely does any fight fan either like or accept a drawn verdict in a fight, such is the need and desire to see a winner after a big and important fight; or even after a small, less important fight. And as we try to move on from the controversy caused by this past Saturday’s fight and the drawn verdict that was handed in after middleweights Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez went to war for 12 engrossing rounds (and as we try and somehow forget the shocking card of one judge in particular), there are those people who seem unable to let it go.
Yildirim’s coach: “I am the colonel, he is my Rambo”
Coach Ahmet Öner is ready to send his boxer Avni Yildirim (16-0, 10 KOs) into war against Chris Eubank Jr. (25-1, 19 KOs) on October 7 at the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle in Stuttgart, Germany.
“Our relationship is like a colonel and a soldier,” said Ahmet Öner. “Sometimes I call him John Rambo, and I am Colonel Trautman. He is my Rambo, I made him and I am very happy with what I’ve made.”
Last night many fans were upset about the scoring of Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in their fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Many even say the scoring was a business decision which implicates corruption or Adalaide Byrd just had an off night. She is being dragged through the mud by the media fans, and anybody else who has an opinion on last night bout.