IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vazquez (34-3, 13 KOs) plans on using his boxing skills, long reach and movement to beat fringe contender Mickey Bey (20-1-1, 10 KOs) in their fight on September 13th on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Marcos Maidana rematch at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The fight card will be televised on Showtime pay-per-view, and the Vazquez-Bey fight will be one of the fights that makes it onto the televised portion of the card.
On Thursday, the Nevada State Athletic Commission has selected Kenny Bayless as the referee for the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Marcos Maidana rematch on September 13th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The previous referee that worked the Mayweather-Maidana I fight was Tony Weeks, who Mayweather was unhappy with because he failed to control the fouling that Maidana did throughout their 12 round bout. Mayweather felt that Weeks had an off night.
The Commission also appointed the following judges for the fight: Dave Moretti, Guido Cavalleri and John McKaie. Hopefully, the judges will score the fight well and not come up with some wild scores like we’ve seen recently with other judges.
After 10 years as a pro, Britain’s Paul Smith (35-3, 20 KOs) will finally be getting a world title shot against WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (40-4, 28 KOs) on September 27th in Germany.
Whether Smith actually deserves the title shot is debatable, as he’s won four fights against soft opposition since his 2nd round knockout loss to George Groves in 2011. On paper, the 31-year-old Smith doesn’t have much of a chance of winning, because he’s lost each time he’s tried to take a step up during his career in defeats against Groves and James DeGale.
IBF/WBA light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (55-6-2, 32 KOs) thinks that some boxing fans are hoping to a high degree that WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (25-0-1, 23 KOs) will knock him out in their unification fight on November 8th in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Hopkins believes for some fans, they’ve circled their wagons around Kovalev and embraced him as the guy that can finally put him down after all these years and put him in his place by showing him that he should have retired like they wanted to.
(Photo credit: Goosen Promotions) Former WBA 154 pound champion Austin Trout (26-2, 14 KOs) successfully weighed in on Thursday for his fight on Friday night against #15 WBA Daniel Dawson (40-3-1, 26 KOs) at the Pechanga Resort & Casino, in Temecula, California, USA. The 36-year-old Dawson also weighed in at 154 pounds and looked in good shape.
Trout is counting on looking good on Friday night in beating Dawson in an impressive manner. Trout wants to show boxing fans that he’s the same fighter he was before his consecutive losses to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Erislandy Lara in 2013. Trout blames those losses on him not fighting his game.
Ricky Burns (31-4-1, 11 KOs) will be hunting for his 3rd division world title next year at light welterweight. He’s given up on the idea of saying at 135 due to the problems he’s been having in making weight for the class.
Burns and his manager Alex Morrison feel that a move up to light welterweight will result in Burns having the strength and energy that has recently abandoned him. Burns is scheduled to fight for the first time at 140 on October 4th in Leeds.
Former three division world champion Adrien Broner (28-1, 22 KOs) doesn’t see either Amir Khan or IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook as being able to beat him. Broner feels he beat both of them if he shared the same ring with them.
When asked by esnewsreporting who would win between Khan and Brooks, Broner said “I don’t give an [expletive], neither of them could beat me.”
Khan and Brooks are in the welterweight division; whereas Broner fights at 140. Broner is currently on a different path than those guys because he’s already captured a world title at 147, and he’s now looking to win a world title at 140. After that, Broner wants to unify all the light welterweight belts before he decides what his next move is.
Trainer Robert Garcia really likes what he sees in WBO light welterweight champion Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) in terms of the talent he has. Garcia doesn’t train Algieri, but he’s seen him sparring his fighters and he became a fan of his after that.
Algieri will be facing Freddie Roach trained WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) on November 22nd in Macao, China. Pacquiao will be giving away 3 ½ inches in height against the 5’10” Algieri and close to 6 inches in reach.
Former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios (32-2-1, 23 KOs) won’t be going back and clearing up the huge controversy surrounding his 9th round disqualification win over Diego Chaves from earlier this month. Instead, Rios is being matched up by his promoters at Top Rank against former WBO light welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov (23-3, 16 KOs) this November, according to Boxingsphere. The negotiations are underway right now between the two fighter’s management.
Rios was on his way to losing to Diego Chaves when referee Vic Drakulitch stepped in and stopped the fight in the 9th round following a head-lock that Chaves had put on Rios. It was later learned that Drakulich had disqualified Chaves for throwing an elbow at some point in the 9th round. It didn’t take place at the time of the stoppage because Chaves didn’t throw an elbow.
(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) 32-year-old Alfredo Angulo (22-4, 18 KOs) feels no pressure whatsoever going into his next fight against James De La Rosa (22-2, 13 KOs) on the September 13th Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Marcos Maidana 2 card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Angulo isn’t concerned about having been stopped in his last two fights against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Erislandy Lara. Angulo says that he’s not the same fighter who was knocked out in the 10th round by Canelo last March in a fight where Angulo looked incredibly weak.