It’s now been almost 18 months since we last saw Oxnard’s Mikey Garcia in a boxing ring, shutting out Juan Carlos Burgos back in January of last year.
The long term contractual dispute with his promoter, Bob Arum’s Top Rank, shows no sign of abating, despite recent assertions from the fighter and his brother/trainer Robert that he had hoped to be back in the ring before the end of the year.
Fight fans won’t have to cast their minds too far back to Hamburg, Germany – July 2011 and the now infamous “Toe-Gate” saga that engulfed David Haye’s failure to back up his promises and dethrone Wladimir Klitschko. All the distasteful pre-fight talk and T-shirts depicting the severed heads of the two fighting brothers all amounted to a dodgy toe and an underwhelming performance in the end.
Since that night, the dominant champion has marched on ahead with his career and scalped a further 8 opponents, stopping or knocking out 5 of them – and ahead of his latest challenger, giant Brit Tyson Fury – whom he fights in October – Klitschko has spoken to ESPN to say he suspects the Brit fighter is going to be just like his countryman – all mouth.
On October 24, 2015, the Ukrainian reigning heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (64-3-0) will cross the ropes and enter the ring against one of the more formidable opponents in his late career, an undefeated U.K. native Tyson Fury (24-0-0).
Klitschko’s last defeat was handed to him by Lamon Brewster (35-6-0) in 2004, after which Wladimir went on to win 22 bouts, most of which came by way to knockout. Despite the fact that he has been challenged by a range of opponents that came with a variety of styles, Klitschko stayed dominant.
Having said that, in his last fight against Bryant Jennings (19-1-0), Wladimir’s performance was lackluster at the least, with the champion looking slow, sloppy, and unenthusiastic. Was Klitschko gassed due to the ravages of time?
After recent social media “interactions” with WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder and the news that colourful heavyweight rival Tyson Fury has got his big shot at Klitschko, Australian heavyweight contender Lucas Browne has spoken out in a new social media video to air his frustration at 8 months of inactivity, as well as the perceived uncertainty surrounding his status as Commonwealth heavyweight champion – a belt it’s mooted Britain’s Anthony Joshua is to be fighting for in September.
Browne, who is looked after by Ricky Hatton and the former fighter’s promotional outfit, released a video entitled “Big Daddy thinking of Tyson Fury while on the toilet” – and used the opportunity, initially, to address the giant Mancunian.
Once again Floyd Mayweather Jr. was able to make the media as well as the boxing community explode with emotion, in response to his declaration of either Karim Mayfield or Andre Berto being his next and possibly final career opponent.
In a recent interview, Karim “Hard Hitta” Mayfield (19-2-1, 11 KOs) made it clear that neither Andre Berto nor Amir Khan would be able to deliver the kind of thrilling performance against Mayweather Jr. that he could.
“I’m always ready to fight anyone anywhere. The fact that the great Floyd Mayweather has mentioned me as someone he wants to fight in September is music to my ears. It would be an honor to fight Floyd in Las Vegas.
This Saturday WBA (reg) welterweight champion Keith Thurman fights Luis Collazo on the inaugural “PBC on ESPN” card, and has spoken out ahead of the contest vis fighthub, to attempt to put to bed some of the criticism he has received over the veteran New Yorker as an opponent, honestly confirming, ‘it’s what came with the timing of the fight.’
Fans have perhaps been harshly critical of “One Time”, who has been following a pretty consistent career arc over the last couple of years, culminating in his solid UD win over Robert Guerrero in March on the debut PBC card.
Aside from beating Manny Pacquiao for the WBO belt, there were a few more details that had to be respected in order for Mayweather Jr. to officially hold on to that 147-pound title.
It seems to be that the main culprit behind the decision made by the World Boxing Organization was a $200,000 sanctioning fee that was supposed to be paid in full by July 3, 2015.
On July 18th in Manchester, WBA (reg) super bantamweight champion Scott Quigg tops the bill when he defends his title against Spain’s Kiko Martinez, in what is sure to be a fight that will draw comparisons to that of IBF 122 lb champ Carl Frampton – and his own performances against the Spanish fighter.
The Northern Irishman took Martinez’s world title last September, having previously stopped him in the 9th to win the EBU belt the year before – and with negotiations between Quigg and Frampton for a UK super fight breaking down recently – all eyes will be on how the Bury man performs in anticipation of a possible future showdown with his Tiger’s Bay rival.
Anthony Mundine, the Australian former Rugby player and Islamic convert known more for his distasteful views than his boxing these days, is – believe it or not – the mandatory challenger for Floyd Mayweather’s WBC 154 lb strap, and buoyed by Mayweather’s recent “Berto/Mayfield” talk, has taken to desperately pleading his own case to be entered into the sweepstakes for Floyd’s ‘final’ September fight in a rather pitifully sounding “begging letter.”
In a move more befitting of Amir Khan, Mundine has publicly laid out his case for a shot at “Money” – all but admitting Floyd probably doesn’t even care who he is.
After the two camps came to a last minute agreement ahead of the scheduled purse bid, we now know that Tyson Fury is to get his opportunity to become undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, when he fights dominant Ukrainian champion Wladimir Klitschko on October 24th in Germany.
Following the confirmation, both Tyson and his trainer and Uncle, Peter, took to twitter to express their excitement ahead of getting down to the rigours of a long, hard training camp, for which they will base themselves in Ireland.