For those who are unaware, the city of Youngstown has a rich tradition of boxing royalty. Former world champions and contenders Ray Mancini, Jeff Lampkin, Greg Richardson, Ernie Shavers, Harry Arroyo, and most recently Kelly Pavlik, all called the city in the upper right hand corner of the buckeye state home. In the past few years however, things have quieted down around the rust belt. That is until last month, when Kelly Pavlik’s former trainer, Jack Loew, promoted an eight bout card at St. Lucy’s Palermo Hall. All fights where scheduled for four rounds, all local prospects making their pro debut. In the main event lightweight Alejandro Salinas made quick work of his opponent, dispatching Chris Tanner in the first round. “Salinas has what it takes to be great,” states Loew emphatically.
Khan, Promoters and other views
Boxing has become a careful “matching” event, where few fighters are protected from getting a loss or a beat down. This is because some promoters don’t want to lose the “zero defeat” status of their cash cows, or the fighters themselves are well aware of who they should not step into the ring with… coward, but a smart business move. Fighters often become a “shell” of themselves by getting into the wrong fights. We have witnessed this with Kelly Pavlik after facing Hopkins, Jeff Lacy after calling out Calzaghe and I believe we are seeing such symptoms in Danny Garcia after the Mathysse and Judah fights. My supporting argument for this claim can be seen in the fight against Mauricio Herrera. It was supposed to be a tune up fight, instead he struggled and many believe he actually lost that match.
2014/2015 – Reviews & Previews: Mayweather, Pacquiao, Cotto, Canelo, Bradley, Golovkin, & Khan!
FLOYD MAYWEATHER
2014 will end as one of Mayweather’s more intriguing chapters of his 18 year career. After closing out 2013 with an amazing performance over Mexico’s Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, Mayweather entered 2014 on a high. Unfortunately, a love life gone bad, assisted by other personal drama’s would only serve as a small subplot compared to what would unfold on the night of May 3rd, 2014. Mayweather would dig deep and create a path to victory, but a rugged performance by Maidana proved that even the great ones have reason to fear ‘father-time’.
Khan giving Mayweather to mid-January to start negotiations
Amir Khan is reportedly giving Floyd Mayweather Jr a deadline of mid-January to start the negotiation process or else he’ll start looking at other alternatives for his next fight. Khan has been waiting around for a fight with Mayweather since 2013, and he’s been largely ignored by the popular fighter.
That hasn’t stopped Khan from pursuing him for a fight, but it seems to have backfired because Mayweather has shown little interest in facing the 28-year-old Khan. Either Khan hasn’t been fighting the right guys that would make him a popular enough fighter to interest Mayweather, or there’s some other reason that Mayweather isn’t telling.
Cotto’s adviser says $40 million offer to fight Mayweather is false
Gaby Penagaricano, the adviser for WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto, says that the rumor of Cotto receiving a $40 million offer to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr is false. There was no such offer made. On Sunday, there was a rumor that Mayweather’s adviser Al Haymon had offered Cotto $40 million to fight Mayweather next.
It was a crazy rumor because there was no way that an offer of that size would work given the huge $30 million+ that Mayweather typically gets for his fights. A rematch between Cotto and Mayweather wouldn’t bring in over 2 million buys like the Mayweather vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight, and it would be lucky to do more than 1 million pay-per-view buys, because a lot of boxing fans would likely not be interested in seeing a second fight between them.
Mayweather an option for Cotto if he doesn’t face Canelo
Floyd Mayweather Jr could slide in and snatch Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s hoped for mega-fight against WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto on May 2nd. Cotto’s adviser Gaby Peñagarícano is saying that Mayweather is a potential option for Cotto. Mayweather’s adviser Al Haymon has allegedly offered Cotto $40 million to take the Mayweather fight.
This offer hasn’t been confirmed by Mayweather or Peñagarícano though. It would obviously be tough for Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions to match an offer of this kind if it turns out to be true.
De La Hoya sees Canelo replacing Mayweather and Pacquiao as boxing’s top PPV star
Oscar De La Hoya, the President of Golden Boy Promotions, believes that his fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) will be the guy that takes the baton from Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao to replace them as boxing’s No.1 pay-per-view attraction once those two fighters retire.
It’s interesting that De La Hoya believes that the 24-year-old Canelo will be the guy that will be taking over as the top PPV star because there are many boxing fans who believe that he deserves to have three losses on his resume, not just one to Mayweather.
Quillin sees Golovkin fight as not worth the risk
If you were hoping to see former WBO middleweight champion Peter Quillin (31-0, 22 KOs) face WBA 160 pound champion Gennady Golovkin in the near future, you might want to forget about it. Quillin, 31, said that Golovkin is too high of a risk without much of a reward right now because the money isn’t there.
Quillin wants to fight guys that bring him good money, and in the case of Golovkin it wouldn’t bring the kind of money that it might later on. Quillin acknowledges that Golovkin has a big name right now, but he thinks that his name doesn’t bring the big money yet.
David Haye promises to return in top form in 2015
Former two division world champion David Haye (26-2, 24 KOs) says his surgically repaired right shoulder is strong and he’s punching harder than ever. Haye, now 34, says he’ll be returning to the ring in 2015 to start his comeback to try and get a title shot against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.
Haye lost his WBA title to Wladimir three years ago in 2011 in a one-sided fight. Haye looked too small for the 6’6”, 245 pound Wladimir, and the fight ended up being totally one-sided. At 6’3”, 210 pounds, Haye is more of a cruiserweight sized heavyweight than an actual heavyweight.
Does Sergey Kovalev deserve Fighter of the Year for 2014?
Recently, ESPN named Terence Crawford as their Fighter of the Year for 2014 due to his wins over Raymundo Beltran, Yuriorkis Gamboa and Ricky Burns. However, only the Gamboa fight was truly interesting to watch, and the Burns fight really proved nothing given how poor Burns has looked since then.
Gamboa is really a pumped up featherweight who had no business fighting in the lightweight division against a fighter the size of Crawford. The Crawford-Beltran fight was not an interesting fight to watch due to Crawford’s constantly clinching each time Beltran would get in position to throw a punch. It was not great television, believe me.