Tuesday in Mexico City, the WBC unveiled the million dollar belt that will be presented to the winner of Mayweather-Pacquiao on May 2nd.
Current WBC 175lb champion Adonis Stevenson and legendary former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes were on hand to help with the unveiling, alongside WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman.
It’s always good to see the Easton Assassin, who won his own WBC strap in a gruelling fight with Ken Norton in 1978, out and about and looking so well.
American 168lb king Andre Ward (27-0, 14ko) has shown a self-deprecating sense of humour in a chat with fighthype.com, jokingly referring to his much talked about comeback as “the comeback 2.0”.
This obviously in reference to the agonising time out of the ring he has had since his last fight way back in November of 2013, and the mooted returns that have previously failed to materialise.
With a smile on his face, S.O.G said of his pencilled in June 20th date, “It’s the comeback 2.0. Let’s just clarify! You gotta laugh at yourself sometimes, man. It (the inactivity) is what it is..”
They have arrived with a bang. A knock out bang that is resonating through the cruiser weight … continue
The panic among those rich enough to secure one, must be rising steadily as tickets for the “Fight Of The Century” are STILL not on sale to the public as at time of writing (Weds am)
A little over 24 hours ago Golden Boy Promotions boss, Oscar De La Hoya issued a day-long offer to anybody with a genuine ticket, that could they take a photo and tweet it to him, he would send them to the May 9th Canelo-Kirkland fight in Texas for nothing.
Earlier this week on twitter and numerous other sites a picture of Sergey Kovalev gathered real steam when it showed him pointing to the t-shirt of a small child in his arms (presumably his son) that featured an image of a chimpanzee wearing boxing gloves.
Beneath the image, Kovalev (27-0,24ko) included a caption, referring to rival and Haitian national (WBC 175lb king) Adonis Stevenson (26-1,21ko) that simply read;
“Adonis is looking great”
The picture quickly provoked a storm on social media with twitter users referring to the dominant Russian champion as “ignorant”, “racist” and “naïve”.
Both fighters conducted themselves with confidence, class and respect, something, which has typified the build up to a fight that has accepted its position as the entrée to the biggest event in boxing history.
This class cannot be extended to the continued delusion of gate crasher Shannon Briggs, who ludicrously turned up at the proceedings as incoherent and as annoying as ever.
ALI vs. SANTANA is presented by K2 Promotions in association with Gary Shaw Productions and Golden Boy Promotions.
Tickets priced at $1000, $600, $300, $200 and $100 may be purchased through the Madison Square Garden Box Office, www.TheGarden.com and www.Ticketmaster.com.
British middleweight star and WBA 160lb interim champion Chris Eubank Jr (19-1, 14ko) has spoken to “nuffinlong.com” in the UK to promote his “routine” title defence on Frank Warren’s May 9th card in London against unheralded Australian Les Sherrington (35-7, 19ko)
At the same time he used the opportunity to take a pot shot at bitter rival and WBO mandatory Billy Joe Saunders (21-0, 11ko) and to convey his disappointment at being unable to join the Mayweather family out in Vegas for the big fight.
The May 9th fight that will come potentially a week late for Mexico’s biggest PPV star (as Floyd and Manny have already bagged the sought-after Mexican bank holiday weekend date, even though Cinco De Mayo is on the 5th) is being billed as “his toughest test yet” in many corners of the media, which is leaving many fight fans, especially neutrals, totally bemused.
I spent this morning watching old boxing clips, compilations of great rounds, profiles of great fighters and the one thing that became obvious was that styles most certainly make fights. Ali was superbly sleek and ultimately elusive until he shared the ring with Frazier whose marauding style negated much of what Ali had to offer. Their trilogy rank amongst the all-time great bouts as styles forced those men into a war that defined an era of the sport. Kenny Norton, the forgotten man, had even more success against Ali and many felt that he actually won two of their three encounters…I happen to be one of those and I always felt a sense of sympathy for the truly brilliant but often overlooked Norton.
On a different level, Marco Antonio Barrera knew all about styles when he opted to face Junior Jones as a warm up for a major showdown with Erik Morales. Jones was no pushover but, on paper, he simply wasn’t in Barrera’s class. I remember watching the bout live and being truly amazed at how inept Barrera was in dealing with the movement of Jones. The rematch was designed to show how a more focused Marco Antonio could easily handle the limited Jones but that backfired also and Junior Jones has a 2-0 record against the legendary Mexican. That Morales later destroyed Jones and Barrera went on to beat Morales is a scenario that highlights the ‘styles make fights’ aspect of what happens in the ring when the talking and the training is done.