MASHANTUCKET, CT (March 15, 2016) – Gary Russell Jr. will return to the ring to defend his WBC Featherweight World Title against Irish contender Patrick Hyland on Saturday, April 16, live on SHOWTIME® (11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT) from Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, CT.
In the SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING co-feature, undefeated IBF Super Featherweight World Champion Jose Pedraza will defend against mandatory challenger Stephen Smith.
If heavyweight champion Tyson Fury gets his way, the heavyweight division will see some huge and potentially thrilling match-ups take place in the coming months. Fury must first defeat former champ Wladimir Klitschko – in a return fight that has dragged on and on in terms of being officially announced; maybe the two fighters will clash in a secret location on a secret date! – but after that he wants more big names.
Former two-time world champion Paul Williams, who’s pro career came to a sudden and tragic end when he was paralyzed from the waist down after a motorcycle accident in May 2012, is back in boxing as a trainer.
The popular Williams will work the corner of once-beaten Justin DeLoach (13-1, 7 KOs) when DeLoach faces undefeated super welterweight and local favorite Dillon Cook (16-0, 6 KOs) in the opening eight-round bout of what is now a ShoBox: The New Generation quadrupleheader on Friday, March 25, live on SHOWTIME (10:30 p.m. ET/PT, delayed on the West Coast) from Buffalo Run Casino in Miami, Okla.
A couple of days ago, a photo of Argentine warrior Marcos Maidana surfaced on the internet and it caused quite a response, being re-posted a number of times. Maidana looks very much over his fighting weight in the pic, his stomach bloated and rings of fat evident. Immediately after seeing the picture, fans everywhere came to the seemingly obvious conclusion: the once great action fighter who gave us memorable fights with the likes of Victor Ortiz, Amir Khan, Adrien Broner and, most recently, Floyd Mayweather Junior twice will not be fighting again.
As fight fans are probably aware, it looks like reigning WBC heavyweight king Deontay Wilder will have to travel to Russia for what most are calling the toughest fight of his entire career – the May 21st date with Alexander Povetkin. Wilder, unbeaten at 36-0, deserves much credit if he does indeed take the already risky (but mandatory) assignment in the hostile, unfamiliar environment of Russia.
Unified WBA/IBF 122-pound champ Carl Frampton has told The Belfast Telegraph he is already making plans regarding his retirement from boxing. Though he is probably at his peak now and has many big fights ahead of him, the unbeaten Irishman is already looking at making sure he does not stay in boxing too long.
Next up for Frampton will almost certainly be a summer showdown up at featherweight with thrilling warrior Leo Santa Cruz. If Frampton can get a win there he will have achieved another of his goals: that of becoming a two-weight world champion. And Frampton said he is hoping Santa Cruz will agree to fight him in Belfast, though he says he has his doubts.
Will superstar Manny Pacquiao really call it a boxing career and walk away into a fulltime life of politics after his April 9th rubber-match with Tim Bradley? Pacquiao has repeatedly said this will indeed be his last one, but not everyone is convinced – least of all his promoter Bob Arum.
In speaking with Gareth A. Davies in an exclusive for The Telegraph, the 84-year-old Top Rank boss said he strongly feels Pacquiao will, like so many of the other fighters he has worked with his in 50 year career, have the urge to box again.
Warrior Mike Alvarado makes a return to the ring this Saturday night, when he will face Saul Corral, 19-6, in Houston, Texas. 35-year-old Alvarado, 34-4(23) has been in a number of punishing wars – see his epics with Brandon Rios, Breidis Prescott and Ruslan Provodnikov – and it is unclear how much he has left.
As fight fans have probably read, come-backing former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye has announced how he is “in talks” with new WBA belt holder Lucas Browne and is hopeful he might fight him in his second return fight, set for May 21st at The O2 in London. However, Browne, who is obliged to fight Fres Oquendo as per the WBA’s tournament designed to finally crown just one man as their heavyweight king (there are currently three men staking such a claim: Browne, Tyson Fury and Luis Ortiz) took to Twitter to shoot down Haye’s talk.
In his own colorful, no-nonsense way, the unbeaten warrior known as “Big Daddy,” wrote the following in response to Haye’s claims:
Tyson Fury had to travel abroad, to Dusseldorf, Germany for his shot at defending heavyweight king Wladimir Klitschko and it seems likely the new champion will have to travel abroad again for his first defence. The Fury-Klitschko rematch has been worked on for some weeks now, but the date now being talked of is June 4th and the favorite to play host to the fascinating rematch is Austria – the country Klitschko has often used for his training base.
According to an article in The Mirror, Klagenfurt’s 32,000 capacity Woerthersee stadium is now the front-runner to host the fight.