James DeGale defended his IBF Super Middleweight World Championship in a thriller over hometown favorite and former champion Lucian Bute on Saturday in the main event of SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING.
It was the first title defense for DeGale, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist from Britain who went on the road to Boston to win the title earlier this year and chose to defend in hostile territory.
Most boxing prognosticators picked the veteran and well-tested Wladimir Klitschko to topple the slightly taller Tyson Fury in today’s match in Germany, where the Irish-English-Gypsy man upset Klitschko for the unified heavyweight champion title of the world.
Perhaps we should have trusted our instincts.
Super welterweight world champion Jermall “Hitman” Charlo (23-0, 18 KOs) stopped “Silky” Wilky Campfort (21-2, 12 KOs) in the fourth-round to retain his title Saturday afternoon on Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) on NBC from The Bomb Factory in Dallas.
Charlo used his height and jab to control the fight and keep the tenacious Campfort from getting inside and causing any damage to the defending champion. In the second round, Charlo landed a two-punch combo that ended with a right cross to send Campfort to the canvas.
IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale (22-1, 14 KOs) retained his IBF title tonight with a less than thrilling 12 round unanimous decision win over 35-year-old Lucian Bute (35-3, 25 KOs) from the Vidéotron Centre in Quebec City, in Quebec, Canada. Bute, 35, had the crowd on his side the entire fight, and they did a good job of motivating him during the championship rounds.
Former super-middleweight world champion and ‘Sky Boxing’ analyst, Carl Froch, believes Tyson Fury’s best chance of beating Wladimir Klitschko tonight in Dusseldorf is to get close and really try to ‘put it on’ the dominant champion.
Froch – in Germany to cover the fight for the British broadcasting giant – has poured cold water on the notion that Fury should try to get on his bike and box at range, claiming the impeccable distance and timing of Klitschko will mean he inevitably walks onto that one, big, fight-ending shot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seBKtWZ4kYY
The faces change but the Klitschko name stays the same in the heavyweight division. Wladimir defends his heavyweight titles against an unbeaten contender in Tyson Fury. Many outside the U.K. assume it will be another day at the office for Wlad. Can Tyson Fury do what hasn’t been done in quite some time? At the very least it will be fun to watch these two giants square off.
Much has been made of Tyson Fury since it was announced that he would realise his dream of challenging Wladimir Klitschko for the right to call himself undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
IBF super-middleweight champion, James DeGale, says he will stop Lucian Bute in front of the challenger’s home fans in Quebec on Saturday night, warning the Canadian that he is out to ‘finish the job’ after Carl Froch previously exposed him in 2012.
Top Rank CEO, Bob Arum, has stated he is hopeful that Manny Pacquiao will select fellow Top Rank star, Terence Crawford as the opponent for the Filipino’s career swansong in April 2016, rather than Britain’s Amir Khan.
Both Crawford and Khan are said to still be in the frame, as Arum says the decision is solely Pacquiao’s to make, though when you consider the obvious financial benefits to the TR boss of making an in-house fight with Crawford over one with Khan – who is advised by Al Haymon and has his own promotional company – it’s pretty clear to see who is most likely getting the call.
On Saturday, November 28, WBA WBO, IBF and IBO heavyweight champion Wladimir “Dr. Steelhammer” Klitschko (64-0-3, 53 KOs) faces challenger Tyson Fury (24-0-0, 18 knockouts) in the ESPRIT arena, Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, for the heavyweight championship title. For veteran and betting favorite Wladimir Klitschko, the 6’6”, .245 lb. thirty-nine year old Ukrainian born in Kazakhstan (currently married to American actress Hayden Panettiere), a win in this bout means his twenty-fourth successful title defense (including his initial reign as a WBO champion), second only behind Joe Louis (twenty-five successful title defenses) and ahead of Larry Holmes (twenty) and Muhammad Ali (nineteen). Dr. Steelhammer is tied with Joe Louis as for most heavyweight title fights ever (twenty-seven).