By James Slater – I don’t know about you, but I’m excited about the upcoming Tony Bellew-Edison Miranda light-heavyweight showdown set for London on September 8th (just one in a number of hot-looking match-ups set for next month – including amongst others, Dawson-Ward, Burns-Mitchell and Martinez-Chavez Jr.)
So it was with great interest that I read excellent web site BoxRec’s/f Ringnews24.com interview with “Pantera.”
by James Slater – The two reigning heavyweight kings the Klitschkos, Wladimir and Vitali, are so good and so all-conquering, it’s got to the point where both men are having to search incredibly hard for their next acceptable challenger.
In fact, if you ask some fans, some harsher critics, neither sibling has actually managed to find an acceptable challenger for his next outing. Wladimir, the Ring Magazine, WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO ruler will face unbeaten but largely untested Pole Mariusz Wach, while WBC king Vitali will face the even less tested but also unbeaten Manuel Charr of Beirut.
Let’s take a look and decide which of the two massive outsiders has the best shot, the best prayer, the best hope of being blessed with a miracle in the coming months.
27-year-old Charr, 21-0(11) gets his chance first, on September 8th in Moscow. Smaller than Vitali, possessing only a fraction of “Dr. Iron Fist’s” punching power and experience, Charr, known as “Diamond Boy,” looks to have only one chance in my opinion: that Vitali, all 41-years of him, either suddenly grows old in the ring or suffers an injury (okay, that’s two chances Charr has!)
By James Slater – Earlier this week, invaluable news outlet Fightnews.com reported on a story that says the WBA will soon bring in a new system of fight-scoring that the organisation hopes will cut short the seemingly growing number of controversially-scored bouts.
The WBA is planning to bring in a system whereby if a round of a fight is close, the winner, instead of receiving a 10-9 tally, will only receive a score of 10-9.5. If, however, fighter A wins the round big (but doesn’t score a knockdown) he will win by the old way of 10-9. Naturally, if either fighter does score a knockdown, he will win the round 10-8.
This idea, in my opinion, makes sense – at least on paper.
By Michael Collins: IBO/IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (58-3, 51 KO’s) defends his titles on November 10th against the biggest opponent of his career in 6’7 1/2″ Mariusz Wach (27-0, 15 KO’s) of Poland at the O2 World Arena, Altona, Hamburg, Germany. Wladimir, 36, is simply running out of suitable heavyweights for him to fight, hence the choice of the unproven 32-year-old Wach for his next opponent instead of someone with at least a tiny bit of experience at the world level.
By James Slater: For weeks now we’ve heard the rumours: Ricky Hatton is set to make an unlikely ring return. Well, now it’s official. U.K tabloid The Daily Star released the exclusive, and a number of publications and web sites have carried the story since it broke this morning.
By Prince Dornu-Leiku – US based Emmanuel Addotei Addo nicknamed Money Mosquito is looking to announce himself to the boxing world when he leads a 4-man Ghanaian invasion of Mexico come September 24 at the Hotel Executivo, Culiacan.
Addo, 11-1, 9 KOs, faces former IBO world champion Fernando ‘Wary’ Beltran (36-8-1, 20 KOs) over ten rounds in an IBO Intercontinental Featherweight contest the Ghanaian hopes will propel him to greater glory.
By James Slater – His promoter, Ahmet Oner insists he is the most talented heavyweight out there today, as well as being the biggest threat to the Klitschkos (Vitali especially) and a number of fans agree that an in-shape Odlanier Solis would give any fighter a hard time. The well documented problem, however, is getting Cuba’s Solis in shape!
An exceptional amateur, who won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics, Solis has had a tough time getting below the 250-pound mark ever since his defection from his homeland. “La Sombra” did get down to 246 for his disastrous WBC title challenge of Vitali Klitschko, but a knee injury felled him in a massively disappointing 2 minutes and 59-seconds. David Haye, for one critic, put the knee injury down to the excess weight Solis’ joints had been forced to carry.
Since the humiliating loss (and the surgery and subsequent recuperation that came after), Solis has kept a low profile; leaving Oner to do the tough talking. Winning just one fight since the March 2011 loss to “Dr. Iron Fist” (a workman-like 12-round UD victory over Konstantin Airich this past May), the 32-year-old gets back in the ring in September, on the Tomasz Adamek-Travis Walker card in Newark, New Jersey.
By James Slater – As those fans who were lucky enough to have seen him fight live, in the flesh (really lucky!) or from their armchair (must-see T.V!), Great Britain’s great middleweight/super-middleweight Nigel Benn rarely if ever disappointed in the action stakes.
Today, long after “The Dark Destroyer’s” final fight (a disappointing corner retirement loss to a Steve Collins who twice caught up with Benn at a time when he was way past his best) fans on both sides of The Atlantic remain interested in the whole Benn mystique. Far more than just a slugger (although Benn’s power was legendary), Nigel had heart, guts, skill and a far better chin than it was once thought (“this man ain’t chinny!” insisted former arch-rival Chris Eubank after the first of their two epic encounters had just come to it’s violent conclusion.)
There really was plenty to enjoy when Benn was in action:
Who can forget his amazing Oct. 1988 battle with Jamaican-born Anthony Logan? Defending his Commonwealth middleweight title for the first time, Benn almost came a cropper.