The Al Haymon Takeover

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you’ve heard about the “Premiere Boxing Champions” series being launched by Al Haymon. The powerhouse boxing manager has recently announced contracts with NBC, CBS, Spike TV and ESPN – with rumors of upcoming deals with BET, Telemundo and possibly more networks on the way. What short, middle and long-term impact will this series have on the boxing landscape? What complications lie ahead? And how may this all affect potential super-fights that boxing fans have been clamoring for?

The PBC series officially kicks off on March 7th from Las Vegas with a co-feature between Adrien Broner and John Molina, while Keith Thurman faces Robert Guerrero in the main event.

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Robert Garcia discusses undercard for Floyd vs Manny

In an interview with ESNEWS, Robert Garcia , former world champion and, trainer and brother to talent Mikey Garcia, discussed the idea of what an undercard would look like on the biggest night of boxing in the history of the sport.

He started out by saying that the paydays for the two top attractions would leave very little money left to pay for good undercard fights, there is also the belief that an undercard would not really be necessary as the fight is so big and well publicised that it would carry itself.

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Robert Guerrero on Thurman–‘If we go on the inside, he won’t be able to handle me.’

Whilst talking to ThaBoxingVoice, former world champion Robert Guerrero discussed his upcoming bout with one of the upcoming stars of the sport – Keith Thuman. Guerrero discussed a bout he had with Andre Berto where both Berto and the public at large assumed the bigger, stronger Berto was going to walk through Guerrero and knock him out. Guerrero actually brutalised Berto in that fight. He knocked him down twice and bruised up his face severely. Berto managed to see the fight out to the twelfth, but if we were in the days of fifteen round fights it would have had to be stopped.

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Tyson Fury has 7 stoppages in his past 8 fights

In 2011, heavyweight Tyson Fury fought Nocolai Firtha. This was Furys 16th fight of his career and he stopped Firtha in the 5th round. Interestingly 2 years and another loss later Wilder would also fight Firtha, despite this being his thirtieth fight. From that point Fury has fought another 7 times and out of those eight fights he has stopped 7 opponents. The point I am making here is that Fury was never known as a real puncher considering he fights in the heavyweight division. He now has 17 stoppages from 23 fights which is around a 75% KO ratio.

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Abner Mares – I have no problem facing Rigondeaux, I have fought him before

In an interview with FightHype, former WBC featherweight world champion Abner Mares discussed his amateur bout with Guillermo Rigondeaux in the finals of the Pan American Games. In that fight Mares lost and ended up walking away with the silver medal and Rigondeaux took the gold.

In the interview Mares said he was not scared of Rigondeaux and would love to fight him. ‘I think there is a great possibility I beat him, we just have to work hard and find a way.’ A possible clash between Rigondeaux and a well known talent like Mares is long overdue and I am sure there would be a lot of public interest in this fight.

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Smith: I have improved since first fight – Abraham has not

Paul Smith says that the confidence from his first clash with Arthur Abraham and the improvements in the gym means he will be taking the WBO World Super Middleweight title back to Liverpool after the pair rematch on Saturday at O2 World in Berlin, live on Sky Sports. Smith pushed Abraham to the limit when the pair met for the Armenian-German’s belt in September in Kiel, where the champion held onto his belt but controversy reigned over the wide-margins in the scoring after such a close contest.

The Liverpool favourite landed the rematch he craved in December and has been working tirelessly in the gym with trainer Joe Gallagher to build upon the confidence from their first meeting and perfect a plan to leave the result in no doubt. Smith feels primed to rip the title from a champion that he respects, but does not believe can offer anything more than he did in their first meeting.

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Golovkin vs Murray: Press Conference Quotes, Videos, Photos

Middleweight World Champion GENNADY “GGG” GOLOVKIN and top rated challenger MARTIN MURRAY give their final thoughts at today’s final press conference.

GENNADY “GGG” GOLOVKIN

“Martin Murray is a great fighter, he looks strong here today. He is the biggest test of my career.”

“Thanks to everyone for putting this event together, it’s great to be back in Monte Carlo, I love fighting here. Thanks to my team and my coach Abel Sanchez.”

“I promise a great fight on Saturday night and a big drama show.”

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Golovkin on Murray: ‘He is great fighter, he is strong, I respect him’

In the press conference for the upcoming Golovkin vs Murray fight, the dominant 160lb champion had a lot of good words to say about his latest choice of opponent. Martin Murray from the UK has 29 wins in 31 fights with 1 loss and a draw. After winning the British, Commonwealth and WBA Inter-Continental straps Murray faced WBA Super champion Felix Sturm.

That fight finished with a very controversial split decision draw as the final result and Murray was denied his world title. After two back to back wins which saw Murray gain the interim WBA title he then went into a fight with Sergio Martinez, who despite being dropped in the fight and looking as though he lost the majority of the exchanges, came away with the unanimous decision. This was the second title fight for Murray and the second time a home-cooked decision had cost him the title.

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Roach: Golovkin ‘hasn’t fought anybody yet’

In an interview with FightHype, trainer Freddie Roach had a brief discussion regarding a potential matchup between middleweight champions Miguel Cotto and Gennady Golovkin. Roach immediately stated that to this point Golovkin has not fought the best fighters in the division. When discussing Golovkins past victims he said ‘they’re not that good, lets face it.’

I do not know how true this is as Golovkin has been beating top ten middleweights for a good amount of time now and making them look amateurish. This is a similar illusion created when Mayweather fights, many people think Mayweather doesn’t take the toughest choice of opponents because he beats them with such ease. What people don’t realise is that these are not easy fights, guys like Mayweather and Golovkin just make them look easy. Name another middleweight who could stop both Marco Antonio Rubio and Daniel Geale in less than 5 rounds combined?

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Bob Arum discusses Brook vs Marquez

Bob Arum, in an interview with FightHype, has said that pound for pound figher and four weight world champion Juan Manuel Marquez is in the process of testing out his knee and checking to see how the rehabilitation is going. Arum said that it would be in the next few months that an announcement would be made as to whether Marquez would be able to continue his boxing career, despite wanting to fight on and win that fifth world title and break the record for mexican boxers.

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