Sam Soliman vs. Jermain Taylor – IBF middleweight championship announced for October 8th

New York, NY (9/3/14) – On Wednesday, October 8, DiBella Entertainment and Warriors Boxing, in association with Soliman Stanley Promotions, will stage an exciting night of boxing with IBF middleweight champion “King” Sam Soliman (44-11, 18KO’s) defending his crown against former undisputed middleweight champion Jermain “Bad Intentions” Taylor (32-4-1, 20KO’s) in the main event. The card will take place at the beautiful Beau Rivage Resort & Casino, in Biloxi, Mississippi.

A national hero in his native Australia, Soliman, the longtime top-rated contender, captured the IBF middleweight crown with a dominant 12-round unanimous decision over reigning champion Felix Sturm, in Sturm’s backyard this past May.

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The Sweet Sucker Punch

Tyrell’s final opponent was Francesco Damiani from Italy. Damiani was about 225 pounds of brutal, awkward mayhem. He was an extremely determined brawler who earlier defeated the giant Cuban, Teofilo Stevenson. Stevenson had defeated Tyrell several tomes in international competitions. This obviously wasn’t going to be a walk in the park for Tyrell.

Tyrell was coming off an impressive victory over Lennox Lewis earlier in the box-offs….

…Suddenly I was popped out of my reflective trance by Bobby Dance’s voice, “Hey, your brother’s getting ready to go next.” I was paralyzed with anxiety as I sat on the sofa peering at the TV as Howard Cosell broke down their bios while the fighters were escorted to the ring by their trainers. This was the most anticipated bout of the evening.

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Mayweather vs. Maidana II: Fight Preview and Analysis

On May 3, 2014, Marcos Maidana lost a majority decision to Floyd Mayweather. Although falling short on the judges’ scorecards, the Argentine hit Floyd Mayweather more times than any Mayweather opponent in history (221 times according to CompuBox). On September 13, 2014, Maidana will get another bite at the apple as he becomes the second person ever to earn a rematch against Floyd Mayweather. What follows is a look at the key factors going into their second bout.

RING REAL ESTATE

Three words describe each fighters’ key to success: location, location, location. During their first bout, Marcos Maidana dominated the match when he pinned Mayweather to the ropes. Any time Maidana smothered Mayweather against the ropes, the Argentine would opened up with wild power punches at every angle. With no space between him and his opponent, Mayweather’s sharpshooter accuracy and unmatched quickness were not enough to land good punches effectively. During these moments Mayweather looked human, even beatable.

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Joseph Parker: Going back to the future

New Zealand, made up of two small islands, the shaky isles as it is sometimes referred to, isolated and diminutive in population, can be both a forward thinking yet deeply conservative country. Paradoxically everyone loves a winner in New Zealand so long as the winner in question remains both humble and unassuming.

When placing its winning bid to host the 2011 Rugby World Cup, a foundation of the countries’ successful tender was a pledge that the tournament would be played in ‘a stadium of 4 million’ and so it proved to be. The comparatively small size of New Zealand, where almost everyone knows someone, means that when their sports stars excel they often do so carrying the weight of a nation on their shoulders.

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Bernard Hopkins vs. Sergey Kovalev quotes from New York press conference

Bernard “The Alien” Hopkins and Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev held a press conference in New York City and a media roundtable in Philadelphia Tuesday to officially announce their light heavyweight unification bout on Saturday, Nov. 8 taking place at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City live on HBO World Championship Boxing®. Check out what the fighters and promoters had to say below:

BERNARD HOPKINS, WBA & IBF Light Heavyweight World Champion

“When fighters want to fight, this is what happens. When we really want to do it and our promoters do as well, we get it done.

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Pacquiao: I know how to fight Mayweather

WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) says he knows how to fight WBA/WBC Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs), and how to force him into brawling with him if he were to agree to fight him. Pacquiao says Mayweather is too concerned with protecting his unbeaten record and that’s why he’s not interested in fighting him.

Mayweather is at a point where he really doesn’t need to fight Pacquiao in order to make big money. With him getting the big money for each of his fights on Showtime, it’s almost pointless to fight Pacquiao right now.

The money Mayweather is getting to fight other guys is just too good, and he’s already said that he won’t fight Pacquiao until he leaves Top Rank, which it doesn’t seem like Pacquiao is inclined to do. Pacquiao just re-signed a new 2-year extension that will take him until the end of 2016.

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Roach: Danny Garcia is my No.1 choice to face Pacquiao

If trainer Freddie Roach gets his way, Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) will be fighting WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (29-0, 17 KOs) in the near future. Roach says Garcia is someone that he really would like to see fighting Pacquiao, because he thinks his fighting style would be perfect for him. Lately, Roach has been talking more about other fighters facing Pacquiao than the guy he’s facing next in Chris Algieri on 11/22 and that has me wondering what his game is.

Roach notes that Garcia likes to come straight at his opponents swinging for the fences with big shots. This is someone Roach believes Pacquiao would be quite comfortable with in the ring.

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Adrien Broner faces Emmanuel Taylor this Saturday on Showtime

This Saturday night on September 6th, former three division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (28-1, 22 KOs) will be in the ring facing #13 WBC Emmanuel Taylor (18-2, 12 KOs) in a Showtime triple-header from the U.S Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Broner, #3 WBA, #3 WBC, is working his way into position to fight for a world title against one of the belt holders. With his ranking by the WBA and WBC, it looks like Broner is being positioned to go after the one of those titles if the current WBA/WBC 140 pound champion Danny Garcia vacates to move up in weight to go after bigger fighters.

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Ashley Theophane talks 36th victory and Mayweather Promotions

I turned professional back in the autumn of 2002, but I didn’t make my professional debut until the following summer of 2003. I had to wait 8 long months for the opportunity. The four big promoters in the UK at the time were not interested in taking a chance on me; Mick Hennessey, Frank Warren, Frank Maloney and Barry Hearn all passed on me.

Years later it would make me feel good when it was pointed out to me that I had surpassed all the British fighters in my weight category that they had signed.

Serendipity would strike again when they would all offer me a promotional deal after I had climbed the world ladder, getting ranked fourth in the world and becoming British champion.

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Roach: We’re [Pacquiao] doing everything we can to fight Mayweather

Trainer Freddie Roach says that Manny Pacquiao is doing all he can to try and get a fight against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. Pacquiao has won 2 out of his last 4 fights in beating fellow Top Rank fighters Brandon Rios and Tim Bradley.

Pacquiao is now set to fight light welterweight Chris Algieri on November 22nd. If it wasn’t him, Pacquiao was going to fight Ruslan Provodnikov.

Roach recently said that Pacquiao would take the smaller money and would agree to the blood testing for the fight, which is what caused their initial Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations to fall apart when they attempted to put a fight together in 2010. Mayweather agreed to a 50-50 deal at that time, but then the negotiations died after he asked for random blood testing to check for performance enhancing drugs.

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