28-year-old former WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (26-2, 14 KOs) will be fighting on ESPN this Friday night against #15 WBC fringe contender Daniel Dawson (40-3-1, 26 KOs) in a 12 round fight at Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, California.
Trout says he’s figured out why he lost his last two fights against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Erislandy Lara, because he wasn’t fighting his fight and was trying to force the action against those guys.
Dominic Ingle, the trainer for IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (33-0, 22 KOs), doesn’t want him to take his career backwards for his first title defense on December 6th in Sheffield by taking on an easy opponent.
Ingle wants Brook to face a high level opponent because he sees that in helping him get ready for one of the bigger fights like Amir Khan or Floyd Mayweather Jr.
The knock on Brook is he’s spent most of his 10-year pro career fighting tune-up type bouts. Last Saturday, Brook finally fought a good opponent in Shawn Porter, and he was able to somehow get the victory by nullifying Porter’s offense on the inside with frequent clinching.
Before former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s last two fights against Alfredo Angulo and Erislandy Lara, he was seen by many boxing fans as the guy who would take over for the aging Floyd Mayweather Jr to become the sport’s next huge money-making pay-per-view attraction.
It didn’t matter that Canelo couldn’t speak English and that he looked too heavy for the weight division he was fighting in; fans still saw him as the guy who would take the baton from Mayweather and bring in huge PPV numbers each time he fought. But now after the disappointing PPV stats that Canelo brought in for his last two fights against Angulo and Lara, it’s now looking like Canelo will be more of a replacement of Miguel Cotto in terms of PPV stats than Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao.
Unbeaten #1 WBC Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) likes his chances against WBC heavyweight champion Bernane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) for when they meet up later on this year in a heavyweight championship fight on Showtime.
Deontay doesn’t see anything in Stiverne’s fighting style and with his power that will give him any trouble. He doesn’t feel that he needs to study Stiverne any longer after watching his last two fights against Chris Arreola, as says Stiverne does the same things over and over. Deontay doesn’t say what those things are, but it’s likely he’s referring to Stiverne throwing a lot of left hooks, right hands and jabs.
42-year-old former WBO heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs (55-6-1, 48 KOs) will be continuing his trek to win another heavyweight title when he gets in the ring with cruiserweight Cory Phelps (16-6-1, 8 KOs) this Saturday night in a scheduled 10 round bout at the Ring of Dreams Boxing Gym, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA.
If a fight between Amir Khan and IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook can take place next year, it might require for Khan to take the lesser money and accept being the B-side of the equation.
Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn is dropping some big hints that Khan may not get the money split that he once could have got if he had taken the fight against Brook before he captured the IBF 147 pound title last Saturday night against Porter.
In Hearn’s mind, the IBF strap and the win over Porter changes everything. Khan doesn’t have the IBF title and he not in the position to call the shots like he could have in the past.
“Obviously, before Khan should get the bigger end because he’s the bigger name,” Hearn said to IFL TV. “Khan never did great numbers on pay-per-view. When he went to Sheffield last time, they really didn’t sell any tickets.
Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions believes that former two time world title challenger Marco Antoknio Rubio will be a tough test for his fighter WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (30-0, 27 KOs) in their West Coast fight on October 18th at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
The 34-year-old Rubio has twice fought for world titles and twice gone down to defeat to Kelly Pavlik and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Rubio has tried and failed in getting exposed by those two fighters.
WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (29-0, 17 KOs) and Viktor Postol have been ordered to start negotiations by the World Boxing Council. There’s a purse bid that will take place next month on 9/12 if the two fighters haven’t negotiated a fight by then.
This move by the WBC will very likely cause Garcia bypass the Postol fight and instead take a unification match against IBF light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson. The WBC will likely allow Garcia to steer around Postol if he takes a unification match.
WBA World junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (19-2-2, 12 KOs) has started training for his next fight in November, according to Fightnews.com. Lara is interested in possibly facing either James Kirkland or former IBF junior middleweight champion Ishe Smith.
Lara was recently beaten by former WBA/WBC 154 pound champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez by a disputed 12 round decision last July in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was a fight that many boxing fans felt that Lara won due to his command of the ring, and his superb defensive skills.
IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook’s promoter Eddie Hearn is looking for a slugger to help accentuate Brook’s fighting style and make him look good in his first defense of his title in his next fight on December 6th.
Hearn says he likes the idea of Brook fighting former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios next, because he’s a fighter that is well known to American fans and someone that will make it an interesting fight.