‘’It was a tough fight,’’ said Abraham. ‘’Paul Smith was by no means an easy opponent and he made me work hard for the win. I was pleased with my performance. I feel that I have proved to myself, to my coach Ulli Wegner and to my fans that I still have what it takes. I’m not in decline and I look forward to more successful defences of my WBO title.’’
Two-time Russian Olympian Artur Beterbiev (6-0, 6 KOs) completely dismantled former IBF light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud (24-3, 19 KOs) on Saturday night in knocking him down 4 times en route to stopping him in the 2nd round at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. Cloud, 32, was down 3 times in the 1st round, and 1 time in the 2nd round. The fight was stopped by referee Michael Griffin at 0:38 of the 2nd.
Wlodarczyk was waiting too long to let his shots off in each round, and this enabled the much busier Drozd to win rounds based on being busier.
In the past, Wlodarczyk was able to win many of his fights simply by overpowering his busier opponents, but that didn’t work tonight. Drozd was able to take the best shots from Wlodarczyk and keep coming forward to land his own punches. Wlodarczyk was knocked down in the 8th round. Drozd did a good job of shutting Wlodarczyk down in the last half of the fight when he was trying hard to score a knockout.
Abraham uncharacteristically went on the attack mode early in the fight in taking the fight to Smith. But after several rounds, Abraham slowed way down and spent much of each round covering up behind his high guard while Smith carefully landed shots to his head and body.
Abraham did a good job in throwing powerful jabs that frequently caught Smith while he was in punching range. But Smith was the one landing many of the cleaner shots. By the 8th, Smith appeared to be in control of the fight. Abraham was taking rounds off and letting Smith control the fight.
On the morning of the Merseyside Derby, you would be forgiven for the thinking that an Everton away victory would be the rarest of occurrences, having not won since 1999, in this sports crazy city.
You’d be wrong.
Not since Paul Hodgkinson’s reign as WBC Featherweight Champion, between 1991-1993, has Liverpool been the home to a legitimate world champion. So, when Paul Smith faces Arthur Abraham (40-4 28KO’s) for the WBO Super-Middleweight World Title in Kiel, Germany this evening, he will aim to redress the balance and return with a title this city has been missing for far too long.
Former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has a lot of people with HBO and Golden Boy Promotions excited about his potential in the sport after he recently signed a 3-year, 3 fight deal with HBO this week. HBO Sports president Ken Hershman believes that he’s got a fighter who will be a huge success for his network with his big fights.
Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya believes that Canelo will become boxing. In other words, Canelo will rise up to the biggest star in the sport.
Former three time world title challenger Matthew Macklin (30-5, 20 KOs) will be in action this Saturday night in an 8 round stay busy fight against 35-year-old Jose Yebes (12-4-1, 5 KOs) on the undercard of the Arthur Abraham vs. Paul Smith fight card at the Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, in Germany.
Macklin, 32, hasn’t fought since struggling to defeat little known Lamar Russ last December in an impressive performance. Macklin looked really poor in that fight, and he was fortunate that Russ didn’t have the stamina to fight hard for more than 5 rounds.
Smith, 31, has definitely picked out the weak link among the super middleweight champions because Abraham has already been proven to not be in the league of Carl Froch and Andre Ward. WBC champion Anthony Dirrell would likely be too much for Abraham as well. But Smith doesn’t have that kind of talent, so he’s going to need to use his intelligence to try and outbox Abraham rather than wasting time trying to put a dent in his sturdy chin.
WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr waited two days before he unloaded on WBO Manny Pacquiao with both barrels on twitter this morning in calling him broke and desperate and in need of a payday fight against him. Mayweather also took a shot at Pacquiao’s sagging PPV numbers, which haven’t hit 1 million buys since his 6th round knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012.
“Miss Pac Man is broke and desperate for a pay day. Your Pay-Per-View numbers are a joke,” Mayweather said.
Ouch, that hurt. Mayweather hitting Pacquiao where it hurts in taking a shot at his financial situation and his high interest in a fight against him. Mayweather sees Pacquiao’s sudden interest in fighting him as a sign that he’s in need of money to help his finances.
Don’t concern yourself. What you thought you saw wasn’t real. “All Access” was all showbiz, according to Floyd Mayweather, Jr. What viewers saw was what he wanted them to see. It was not real, a kind of mirage. Shedding more light, he explained it wasn’t marijuana we saw. It really was nothing but harmless weed, a prop. He further explained we need not believe what we heard either. The truth is his doghouse fighters really did have rest periods, and weren’t forced to spar for 31 straight minutes. And, those people flashing money around, giving us the impression they were betting, well that was a staged exhibition for the cameras.
The NSAC panel in charge apparently nodded their heads in agreement, and voiced their satisfaction with Mayweather’s explanation. The implication was as long as you were just kidding, it’s okay. But, next time please let us know a head of time what you’re planning to do, so we won’t be alarmed and made to look foolish. Money would have us believe as Mick “Crocodile” Dundee used to say, “No worries mate.”