The Rodney Dangerfield of Boxing: Bernard Hopkins aka Bhop

Rodney Dangerfield made the catchphrase “I don’t get no respect” famous. Bernard Hopkins must be thinking the same.

This coming weekend Bhop goes up against hard hitting WBO Lt. Heavyweight Champion Sergey Kovalev, which is an intriguing matchup. Can the hard hitting Kovalev catch Bhop and make him pay or will Bhop once again figure out how to win? The predictions are pretty much 50/50. There are those that think Bhop can’t keep betting against Father time and win, but truth be told we have seen him do this time and time again and there lies my pet peeve. Dislike him for his antics outside the ring and his ranting and sometimes ill advised comments (I will never let a white boy beat me), but please give this man credit for his accomplishments inside the ring. Only that alone is cause to give him benefit of the doubt. At 48 he is taking on the most dangerous guy in the division hands down, something Stevenson didn’t do. Bhop has ducked no one. Some other self proclaimed ATG can take a page from his book.

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Billy Joe Saunders slams Eubank Jnr. for failing to show up

Billy Joe Saunders has slammed Brighton Baby Chris Eubank Jnr. for failing to show up to yet another head-to-head press conference today to promote their Saturday 29th November showdown at the ExCeL London.

The Hatfield star, who had travelled from his training camp in Marbella with trainer Jimmy Tibbs, was stood up for the third time in a row by the seaside keyboard warrior who was replaced on the top table with a cardboard cutout.

Chris Eubank Snr’s reason for not letting his son not attend the press conference was because he claimed the security provided by promoter Frank Warren was not adequate for the safety of his son, following comments that Saunders would “slap” Eubank Jnr.

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New York Contender to Fight Saturday

DETROIT– Unbeaten cruiser-weight Steve Bujaj, (12-0-1, 9 KO’s); of Tuckahoe, New York, comes back to Detroit for an eight round co-main event. Bujaj, will be one of the headliners at the Masonic Temple-Jack White Auditorium in Detroit on Saturday, November 8. It is his first time back fighting since suffering a broken jaw. He will take on veteran Zack Page (21-44-2); of Warren, Ohio in the highlighted match.

Bujaj, who came to America as an infant from his native Albania, is hoping to have support from the large Albanian community that resides around the Motor City area. “I want the Albanian people to have an athlete they can rally around and be proud of,” said Bujaj. I feel the Detroit area can be a second home to me and I want to be an inspiration for my ethnic base.”

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Kubrat Pulev – the X in the equation?

On November the 15th Kubrat Pulev and Wladimir Klitschko will fight each other in the ring for the heavyweight championship of the world. Most people predict a tough fight for Klitschko and most probably a win by points or late KO, there are some who believe that Pulev can pull the rabbit out of the hat – but is he capable of doing that?

By watching Pulev’s fights one can agree that he is a well skilled boxer and has a great jab, now that just by itself isn’t enough to beat Klitschko because he is incredibly skilled himself and has a superior jab. Klitschko is also stronger and has a great right hand that seems to be missing in Pulev. But I had come across some interesting articles and opinions about Kubrat, basically all the Bulgarian trainers who worked with him since he was a kid say that he isn’t showing all of his abilities in the ring. Indeed in some of his amateur fights he had shown a bit more action than the jab, jab, right hand combo that we are used to since he become pro.

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Hopkins: I have 10 weapons to Kovalev’s one bomb

IBF/WBA light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (55-6-2, 32 KOs) respects the power that WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (25-0-1, 23 KOs) will be bringing to their fight this Saturday night on HBO Championship Boxing at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. However, Hopkins feels that he’s got more ways to beat Kovalev than he does.

Hopkins figures that all he needs to do is nullify Kovalev’s power and he’ll have the fight won. That’s obviously going to be a lot easier said than done, because Kovalev is going to be on top of Hopkins for the full 12 rounds looking to blast him out with each shot. If Kovalev does fade in the later rounds, it likely won’t be unless the 8th or 9th. By then, he’ll have hit Hopkins with a lot of really hard head and body shots, and that might take a lot of the fight out of the aging 49-year-old.

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Pacquiao: After Algieri fight, we can talk about Mayweather

WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) doesn’t want to talk about a potential mega-fight against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr right now, because he doesn’t want to give the impression that he’s name dropping in order to increase pay-per-view sales for his fight this month against Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.

Some boxing fans believe that the only reason why Pacquiao and his promoter Bob Arum have been talking about Mayweather in the run up to the Algieri fight is because the interest in the fight has been less than huge. The fight might ultimately bring in respectable PPV results, but few hardcore boxing fans are excited about it.

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Fonfara suffered hand injury in win over Ngumbu

If you were wondering why #6 WBC light heavyweight contender Andrzej Fonfara (26-3, 15 KOs) looked so poor last night in defeating Doudou Ngumbu (33-6, 12 KOs), you have to realize that Fonfara suffered an injury to his right hand in the 4th round of the fight, according to Fightnews.com. From that point on, Fonfara was pretty much stuck using his left hand to do most of his power punching.

Fonfara won the fight by a 10 round unanimous decision by the scores of 98-92, 97-93 and 97-93. Of course, the injury Fonfara sustained doesn’t explain why he looked so bad in the first three rounds of the fight.

That’s something that you have to wonder about because Ngumbu was able to hit Fonfara nearly at will with his power shots, and it was kind of disappointing to see something like that happening when Fonfara had previously been hyped by a lot of boxing fans.

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Danny O’Connor KOs Farmer

Danny O`Connor made a triumph return to the boxing ring in front of his hometown crowd as he dominated Andrew “The Doo Man” Framer and then knocked him out at 2:33 in the fourth round from a devastating left hook to the body.

“I was a bit nervous because this was my first fight in a while and I was boxing in front of my hometown fans, but I saw Farmer`s punches really well tonight and successfully counter-punch and landed what I wanted,” said O` Connor. “I wasn’t looking for the knockout punch, but it presented itself and I`m glad I won the way I did for my fans.”

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Pacquiao: “You’ll see that I’m back in the old days when I was young.”

After 63 professional bouts, many of them against not notch world champions, it would be plausible to say that Manny Pacquiao’s boxing career has probably run its course. This belief has been highlighted, even exaggerated due to 2 losses in 2012: a SD loss to Timothy Bradley, and of course the 6th round knockout loss to Pacquiao’s nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez. Clearing a loss is much more than just winning a couple of fights, which Pacquiao did against Brandon Rios in 2013 and Timothy Bradley in April of this year.

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Fonfara beats Ngumbu

Former light heavyweight world title challenger Andrzej Fonfara (26-3, 15 KOs) defeated Doudou Ngumbu (33-6, 12 KOs) by a workmanlike 10 round unanimous decision tonight in a fight that was a tougher than it should have been for Fonfara at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago. Fonfara was hit cleanly by a lot of Ngumbu’s best power shots in the fight.

The defense definitely wasn’t there tonight for the 6’2” Fonfara, but he was still able to outwork Ngumbu to win by the scores of 98-92, 97-93 and 97-93. The 98-92 score was a way off from the fight that actually took place in the ring. Ngumbu did a lot better than that score.

Ngumbu was hurt in the 5th round from a left hand from Fonfara. In the 10th, Fonfara had his way with a tired Ngumbu in nailing him with a lot of hard power shots.

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