Floyd Mayweather Jr: Nevada Fighter of the Year

Floyd Mayweather Jr. will be honored as Nevada Fighter of the Year by the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame at its annual Induction Ceremony/Dinner this Saturday night, August 9. It is the second straight year Mayweather takes the honor, following his victories over Canelo Alvarez in September, 2013, and hard-fought decision over Marcos Maidana in May, 2014.

Mayweather will receive the honor on the same night 18 Inductees are brought into the NVBHOF, and several other Special Achievement Award winners are honored. The gala event will take place in the Cohiba Ballroom inside the New Tropicana, Las Vegas. Social hour and Silent Auction begin the evenings festivities at 6PM with dinner and the program at 7PM

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Shannon Briggs doing a great job of creating interest in Wladimir Klitschko fight

Thus far, IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko has missed out on the mega-fights that we saw from former champions like Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis. But that could change with the hype that 42-year-old Shannon Briggs is singlehandedly creating by following Wladimir Klitschko around the globe and getting in his face at every opportunity to force him to fight him.

Briggs has been ignored by Klitschko so far, but Briggs doesn’t care about that. He plans on continuing his one-man campaign to get the fight with the Ukrainian fighter. While it may not be working for Briggs right now, he’s steadily building interest in fight between him and Wladimir Klitschko in Germany.

The fans over in Germany are being bombarded constant news about Briggs’ confrontations with Klitschko. At this point a fight between Briggs and Wladimir Klitschko would likely be the biggest match of his career. That’s unfortunately more of an indication of the lack of interesting opponents that Wladimir has had than an endorsement of Briggs. Klitschko has faced largely unknown fighters or guys that were played out by the time he did face them.

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Hopkins vs Kovalev Official for November Live on HBO

Speed, savvy and defense will come face-to-face with explosive power and force this November when Bernard “The Alien” Hopkins takes on Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev in a Light Heavyweight Unification title fight, Golden Boy Promotions and Main Events announced today.

Hopkins, incredibly just two months short of his 50th birthday, is seeking to add the WBO Light Heavyweight Championship to his collection of IBF and WBA belts. Kovalev, who burst on the scene just a year ago, has never lost a fight and has won 23 of his 25 victories by knockout.

“Everything I do at this point in my career affects my legacy,” Hopkins (55-6-2, 32 KOs) said. “I’ve set and broken many records, but becoming the oldest undisputed light heavyweight world champion is the goal and Kovalev stands in the way of that goal. He’s another young, hungry fighter and just like the ones that came before him, he will leave the ring beltless.”

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Rios wins DQ over Chaves; Jesse Vargas hands Anton Novikov his 1st loss; Kovalev KOs Caparello

It seems no one at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, NV was happy with the way the fight between Brandon “Bam Bam” Rios and Diego Gabriel Chaves ended. It was a close, rugged battle that fans undoubtedly were enjoying. They certainly didn’t want it to end so abruptly at the hands of referee Vic Drakulich. Diego clearly didn’t want it to end with him on the losing end. He felt he was winning the fight, and that it was snatched away from him. Even Rios expressed dissatisfaction with the way things ended, but he felt Diego deserved to be penalized.

The fight was a war. Most people thought that it would evolve into a war, but it wasn’t expected to start that way. Diego controlled that surprise. He came out throwing power jabs and hard overhand rights. Would he run out of steam? Rios seemed to be caught off guard initially, but by the second round he already had Diego backing up. He got in close and started throwing punishing shots to the body. Diego was hit with his first penalty point in the third round, apparently for excessive holding.

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Sergey Kovalev TKO 2 Blake Caparello – business as usual

There was no drama on Saturday night at Revel Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey when Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (25-0-1, 23 KOs) chopped down Blake “Il Capo” Caparello (19-1-1, 6 KOs). Caparello was brave to even take the fight but offered very little in the way of return fire and skill against the overconfident Kovalev.

The Russian started the fight by rushing head on against his unpretentious opponent. The only notable thing about Caparello is that he is a southpaw and this required some adjustments to the fine-tuned automatic skills of his opponents. Kovalev did not seem to care about his opponent’s stance other than throwing straight right hands a little more frequently.

Caparello almost made a name for himself when he was credited with a knock down against Kovalev in the first round. The referee clearly made a mistake, Caparello did land a clean left hand on his foe but his lead foot was firmly set on Kovalev’s lead foot toes and tripped Kovalev off balance. The Russian went down but wasn’t hurt at all; he wasn’t even annoyed and did not make a fuss or challenge the referee’s call. He only “revved up” and the thuds of his shots became more audible. The knock down only expedited matters and brought controlled anger to Sergey’s actions.

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Referee ruins fight, Rios beats Chaves on DQ; Vargas defeats Novikov

Brandon Rios (32-2-1, 23 Kos) should be on his knees tonight thanking referee Vick Drakulich for saving his career in needlessly disqualifying visiting fighter Diego Chaves (23-2, 19 KOs) in the 9th round at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Drakulich had been overactive in taking points off from the 3rd round when he took a point off from Chaves for clinching. I still can’t understand why Drakulich disqualified Chaves instead of Rios, who really was the one that was fouling repeatedly by head-butting during every clinch, hitting low and throwing rabbit punches.

From my perspective, it just looked like Chaves was robbed tonight. He came in as the B-side and he was beating the house fighter and getting fouled like mad. Instead of the referee addressing the fouling that Rios was doing, he disqualified the victim of the fouling in giving the hook to Chaves. I can’t remember ever seeing a visiting fighter get shafted as badly as Chaves did tonight.

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Kovalev Takes Out Caparello in Second Round at Revel

(Photo Credit: Rich Graessle/Main Events) In the much-anticipated WBO Light Heavyweight World Championship bout, Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (25-0-1, 23 KO’s*) takes down undefeated Australian challenger Blake “Il Capo” Caparello (19-1-1, 6 KO’s) in the second round in the third defense of his WBO Light Heavyweight World Title. Kovalev was under a microscope these last few days with the possibility of a unification bout with Bernard “Alien” Hopkins looming. Krusher did not let the pressure get to him, he focused only on the opponent in the ring with him tonight.

Kovalev and Caparello were feeling each other out in the first round. Caparello knocked Sergey off balance in the first and his glove touched the canvas, but Krusher got back up quickly. Blake went down in the second from a crushing body blow but beat the count. He taunted Kovalev to come back at him which Krusher did in relentless fashion. After two more knockdowns, referee Sparkle Lee called it off at 1:47 of round two.

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Andre Dirrell Shines In Return, Campillo Upsets Williams Jr

A packed house at The Little Creek Casino in Shelton, Washington was treated to a huge night … continue

Commonwealth champ Ekpo eyes Arthur Abraham-Paul Smith winner

Newly crowned Commonwealth and WBO Africa Super Middleweight champion, Isaac Ekpo is eyeing an immediate re-crack at the world title itself after revealing his desire to face the winner of the upcoming WBO Super Middleweight championship between champion, Arthur Abraham and Paul Smith.

Ekpo previously lost a decision in a bid for the same WBO title against Robert Stieglitz in Germany last year, the same opponent Arthur Abraham defeated in March to wrestle away the title.

Abraham subsequently successfully defended the belt against Nikola Sjekloca at the end of May and is now aiming at a second successful defence against 31 year old British Super Middleweight champion, Paul Smith at Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany on September 27.

Ekpo who only last month won both the Commonwealth and WBO Africa titles on the back of a convincing victory in Accra, says he is ready to finally achieve his boxing ambition of world championship glory and believes he can overcome the challenge any of Arthur Abraham or Paul Smith could present. And he wants a chance without delay to prove his case.

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Bundu shocks Gavin; Lucas Browne defeats Rudenko

Leonard Bundu 31-0-2 (11) beat Frankie Gavin 19-1 (12) by split decision. Two judges scored the fight 114-113 to Bundu, the other judge scored 115-112 for Gavin.

LUCAS “BIG DADDY” BROWNE came through his toughest test to date and remained on course for a world title shot with hard fought unanimous decision over Andriy Rudenko in Wolverhampton, England on Friday night (August 1).

Both men made their intentions clear from the start and landed with solid shots. Browne, bleeding close to both eyes from a number of head clashes, took control of things from the fifth round and never looked like losing the fight.

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