Former two time WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (47-4, 27 KOs) will be facing former IBF/WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm (39-4-2, 18 KOs) on November 8th in a WBO super middleweight title eliminator bout at the Porsche Arena, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
The winner of the Stiegltiz-Sturm fight will become the WBO mandatory challenger for WBO 168lb champion Arthur Abraham. For the #1 WBO Stieglitz this potentially gives him a chance to fight Abraham for the 4th time in just 3 years.
If Top Rank promoter Bob Arum gets his way boxing fans could be seeing a fight between Arum’s fighter Manny Pacquiao and WBA/WBA welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr in Macao, China in 2015. Arum likes the idea of having the Pacquiao vs. Mayweather fight staged in Macao for some reason.
It could have something to do with a huge site fee that Arum would likely get for staging the fight in Macao, as well as the opportunity to help open up China for pay-per-view. The chances of Mayweather agreeing to fight Pacquiao right now are slim for the early part of 2015, and you’d have to think much, much slimmer that Mayweather ever agree to face Pacquiao in Macao. With Arum already talking Macao before Mayweather has even showed any intereest at all in fighting Pacquiao, it seems like Arum is sabotaging his own efforts. Why talk Macao if you’re really interested in seeing your fighter Pacquiao fight Mayweather? This reminds me of the time Arum was talking about an outdoor stadium needing to be built in order to house more fans for a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight.
(Photo credit: Idris Erba/Mayweather Promotions) Amir Khan (29-3, 19 KOs) is hoping to get a fight against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) next year in May of 2015 in what would be the biggest fight by far of Khan’s career.
While you can make an argument that Khan hardly deserves a fight against Mayweather at this point in his career, given the less dangerous opposition that Khan has been fed by his adviser Al Haymon and his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions in his last three fights, he still likely is the biggest payday Mayweather can get outside of a fight against Manny Pacquiao.
(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) Last night, WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) put on a master class performance in defeating Marcos Maidana (35-5, 31 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision in an action-packed fight from start to finish at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Maidana gave it his all, but Mayweather’s ability to avoid his huge power shots was the key to victory for Mayweather.
After the fight, Mayweather was asked if he would be interested in facing WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather said that Pacquiao first needs to get past Chris Algieri in November, but then other than that, he’ll need to agree to fight on Showtime pay-per-view and Mayweather Promotions would be the one doing the fight, not Top Rank, the promoters for Pacquiao. Either of those two things are likely more than enough for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight not to happen, but with both of them in place, it’s not likely there will be a fight between them unless Mayweather changes his mind.
Boxing history was made in Copenhagen, Denmark last night. Norwegian star Cecilia Brækhus (26-0, 7 KOs) became the first female boxer to unify a division by holding all four major titles simultaneously. The WBC, WBA & WBO Champion scored a unanimous decision victory over IBF Champion Ivana Habazin (13-2, 5 KOs) to become the undisputed welterweight queen.
Cheered on by her loyal army of travelling Norwegian fans, Brækhus once again proved why she is the pound-for-pound female number one with a classy performance against the tenacious Habazin. All three judges scored the fight 100-90 in favour of ‘The First Lady’.
‘’I’ve been dreaming of this moment for a long time,’’ said Brækhus. ‘’To become the first female boxer to unify a division is a huge achievement and something that I am extremely proud of. I would like to thank all the fans that travelled to Copenhagen to support me and Ivana for the part she played in this historic fight.’’
After 24 rounds of boxing with Marcos Maidana, Floyd Mayweather is still the undisputed pound-for-pound champion.
Mayweather (47-0, 26 KOs) successfully defended his WBC and WBA Welterweight and WBC Super Welterweight World Championships with a unanimous 12-round decision victory in a rematch with Argentine slugger Maidana (35-5, 31 KOs) on Saturday in front of 16,144 fans at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, live on SHOWTIME PPV®.
“Money” strategically fought the fight that he wanted, effectively avoiding the looping punches against the ropes that “El Chino” was able to land in their first bout and pivoting back to his domain – the center of the ring.
Marcos Maidana (35-5, 31 KOs) resorted to biting tonight but it still didn’t help him against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) who easily registered his 47th consecutive win on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Maidana took Mayweather’s left hand out of commission in the 8th round after allegedly biting Mayweather hard on his fingers of of his left hand while he had him in a headlock.
The referee Kenny Bayless didn’t see the bite by Maidana so he couldn’t do anything about it. Never the less, Mayweather was unable to use his left hand again with regularity until a couple rounds later. What was interesting is that Maidana denied biting Mayweather after the fight even though a replay showed Maidana appearing to bite Mayweather.
Four months ago, Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather encountered what most viewed as the toughest night of his 18 year career at the hands of Argentinean slugger Marcos ‘Chino’ Maidana. From the moment the final bell rang, fans all around the world have been split on what we witnessed. Mayweather critics felt he would avoid a risky rematch at all cost; supporters felt there was no need for one. Yet here we stand at the doorstep of a sequel, and tonight, once and for all, questions raised will be questions answered. As we prepare for this epic showdown, we take a look at keys to victory, four critical game changers to explore, and an official prediction:
FLOYD MAYWEATHER – KEYS TO VICTORY
Tonight, Mayweather will need to start fast and dictate the tone early. Part of that process will need to be dedication to aggressive body work. In their first fight, once he went to the body, we saw an immediate change in the overall aggression of Maidana as Mayweather slowed him down rather quickly. Aside from body work, Mayweather needs to keep all exchanges in the middle of the ring. Maidana missed 637 punches in the first fight, and of the 221 he landed, more than 70% came against the ropes. If Mayweather can stay off the ropes, be first, and commit to the body, a little footwork would cement his chances of victory, barring an unexpected powershot that he fails to overcome.
(Photo credit: Sumio Yamada) Showtime vice president of Sports Stephen Espinoza acknowledges that there’s been a drop off in pay-per-view sales lately in boxing largely due to the huge amount of PPV events that have been taking place in the past year.
We’ve seen the likes of Manny Pacquiao’s PPV sales plummet from 1 million PPV buy mark to as low as 475,000 for his fight against Brandon Rios last year. However, Espinoza believes that WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr’s rematch tonight against Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KOs) will do better than their previous fight last May. Espinoza expects the fight to do well on Showtime pay-per-view.
Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach thinks WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) has deteriorated to the point where now even Amir Khan can beat him. Roach is saying this week that Khan’s speed would be too much for the 37-year-old Mayweather now.
Roach thinks that Mayweather can no longer move around the ring like he once did, even though he showed excellent movement a year ago in defeating Saul “Canelo” Alvarez by a 12 round decision in one of Mayweather’s biggest wins of his career.
