Wladimir Klitschko: Kubrat Pulev is “too raw and green behind the ears”

Wladimir Klitschko has his sights set on Bermane Stiverne who emerged as the new WBC champion after he sent Cristobal Arreola home early last Saturday. Klitschko is craving to unify the championship and reclaim the trophy his big brother Vitali relinquished and there may not be anyone to stop him.

There are formalities he needs to deal with before the unification and one of them is Deontay Wilder’s WBC mandatory challenger position. Even Bermane Stiverne would be a huge step up in class for Wilder and the winner would eventually have to fight Wladimir Klitschko. Mandatory status or not, Deontay Wilder might do what is in his best interest – avoid Wlad and hope he hangs them up soon. His initial step aside demand was reportedly unreasonable but he has not ruled this option out. One would expect a confident KO machine to go for the title full throttle and treat any distractions with contempt but the heavyweight circus is on the road again.

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Ignacio “Nacho” Beristain: The Trainer of Champions on the three best fighters he has trained

74-year-old Ignacio “Nacho” Beristain is one of the finest boxing trainers in the sport’s long history. Almost certainly THE finest boxing trainer to have come out of the great fighting country of Mexico, Beristain has trained, at one time or another, no less than 24 world champions; from minimum-weight king Ricardo Lopez to multi-weight ruler Oscar De La Hoya.

One of the most deserving inductees in The Hall of Fame, Nacho still has more goals to achieve; most notably guiding Juan Manuel Marquez to success in “Dinamita’s” final ring appearances (starting this Saturday when Marquez will face thrill-a-minute slugger Mike Alvarado).

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‘King’ Carlos Molina training in Mexico, Signs Agreement with Manager Al Haymon

IBF Light Middleweight Champion “King” Carlos Molina (22-5-2, 6 KOs) has signed a managerial contract with Al Haymon and is temporarily training in Mexico City, while promoter and attorney Leon Margules sorts out his immigration issues.

30-year-old Molina, originally from Michoacán, Mexico, says he’s excited to have aligned himself with one of boxing’s most high-profile managers and is looking forward to returning to the ring.

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Sergio Martinez Miami Media Day Quotes

NEW YORK, NY / MIAMI FL (5/13/14) – World Boxing Council (WBC)/The Ring middleweight champion and Argentina’s favorite son, SERGIO “Maravilla” MARTÍNEZ, opened up his Miami training camp yesterday and held an intense, two plus hour open media workout before a throng of media ahead of his upcoming world title defense and the most eagerly anticipated boxing event of 2014 against three-division world champion and the Pride of Puerto Rico, MIGUEL COTTO.

SERGIO MARTINEZ:

“This training camp has been tremendously efficient. Everything has exceeded all of my expectations.

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Marquez targeting Pacquiao for fifth fight

40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez (55-7-1, 40 KO’s) has his eyes on a fifth fight against Manny Pacquiao if he can get past Mike Alvarado (34-2, 23 KO’s) in their HBO televised fight this Saturday night at the Forum, in Inglewood, California, USA. Marquez wants the Pacquiao fight because he’s the WBO welterweight title holder, and Marquez wants the opportunity to win a fifth division world title.

For him winning fifth world title will somehow validate his long 21-year pro career. You can’t help thinking that even if Marquez beats Pacquiao to capture his WBO title, Marquez will continue on and have some other goal that will keep him fighting. Hopefully, Marquez doesn’t get it into his head to try and capture a junior middleweight title, because that would be really pushing it.

“We all want the fifth title. It’s very important to all of us,” Marquez said. “That’s the motivation now to keep going. The first thing is Alvarado, but we know that the fifth fight with Pacquiao is a possibility.”

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Khan: Mayweather’s trying to avoid me

khan555 Amir Khan (29-3, 19 KO’s) has his mind made up that WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (46-0, 26 KO’s) is freezing him out from getting a big fight against him, and he thinks that he’ll finish the remaining 3 fights on his Showtime contract and retire from the sport without giving him a fight.

Khan has it in his mind that Mayweather sees something in his style that he doesn’t feel comfortable with.

“He’s thinking ‘Do I really need to fight Amir Khan? No, I can fight someone else.’ He’s going to avoid me,” Khan said to the dailymail.co.uk. “I think time might be running out…at least the world knows that I wanted it to happen. If he’s not ready or confident then the fight isn’t going to happen. Even if the world says fight Amir Khan next, if he says ‘no’ then it won’t happen.”

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Canelo: All Lara does is cover up when cornered

(Photo credit: Hogan Photos) Former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s) will be able to take advantage of WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KO’s) each time he corners him in their catch weight fight on July 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Canelo, 23, watched Lara’s recent fight against Alfredo Angulo and noticed that Lara mostly would just cover up each time that Angulo cornered him against the ropes.

Canelo thinks he can take full advantage of that if Lara makes that same mistake against him in their Showtime televised pay-per-view fight on 7/12.

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Floyd Sr. still convinced Mayweather would dominate Pacquiao

In his recent win over Marcos Maidana on May 3rd, Floyd Mayweather Jr. looked about as bad as he’s looked since his two life and death struggles against Jose Luis Castillo in 2002. Mayweather, for the first time in his career, looked his age, and didn’t seem to be the same guy that had dominated Robert Guerrero and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez recently.

That’s why it came across as kind of strange that Floyd Mayweather Sr. is still talking about how easily Floyd Jr. would beat Manny Pacquiao if that fight were to happen. It’s pretty much clear that Mayweather will never agree to fight the Filipino star for whatever reason. But it’s strange to see Floyd Sr. talking boldly about how Mayweather would dominate Pacquiao when he couldn’t even beat Maidana convincingly.

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Klitschko eager for fight against Stiverne

Congratulations to Bermane Stiverne for capturing the WBC-Title. It was a good fight against Arreola.

— Klitschko (@Klitschko) May 12, 2014

IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (62-3, 52 KO’s) sent out a congratulatory tweet to newly crowned WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KO’s) for his win over Chris Arreola last Saturday night in Los Angeles, California. Wladimir is hoping that Stiverne will now agree to a unification fight with him so that he can capture his Brother Vitali Klitschko’s old WBC title.

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Stiverne-Arreola II – post fight presser and analysis

Bermane Stiverne stopped Chris Arreola at 2:02 of the sixth round Saturday night to become the first heavyweight titlist of Haitian heritage. ESPN picked up the anticipated rematch and aired it live on the main network rather than ESPN2, which is the home of their popular “Friday Night Fights” series. Here’s a look back at a great event.

The Atmosphere:

It was a unique setting for a heavyweight world title bout, with the card taking place on the University of Southern California campus in Los Angeles. By contrast, the first Stiverne-Arreola match last April was held in front of a larger audience at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, California.

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