Chavez Jr-Vera set for March 1st in San Antonio, Texas

Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (47-1-1, 32 KO’s) has signed his contract for a rematch against Brian Vera (23-7, 14 KO’s) on March 1st on HBO at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. This time there will be a $250,000 weight penalty for Chavez Jr. if he can’t make the weight for the fight. As of now, it’ll be at 168 lbs., but it’ll be interesting to see if this weight will be nudged forward to the 170s like in his fight with Vera last September.

That weight ended up taking place at 173 lbs., and even then Chavez Jr. looked incredibly emaciated when weighing in. During the fight, Chavez Jr. looked as big as a cruiserweight, and one can only guess how heavy he was. Vera ended outworking Chavez Jr. and getting robbed in the eyes of many fans. Chavez Jr. looked good enough to win 3-4 rounds at best, and it was hard to understand what the three judges saw in his performance that made them score the fight for him.

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Canelo-Angulo undercard looking kind of thin

For Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s first pay-per-view head-lining fight against Alfredo Angulo (22-3, 18 KO’s) on March 8th, Golden Boy Promotions is in the process of stacking the undercard with generally smaller fighters that the casual boxing fans will have a hard time recognizing. This is probably not the wisest move for Golden Boy and Canelo do because the Canelo vs. Angulo fight is hardly a PPV quality fight, and Golden Boy could be making things worse by stacking the undercard with generally smaller guys.

What this card needs is the Adrien Broner vs. Marcos Maidana II rematch and/or Canelo facing Erislandy Lara instead of Angulo, a fighter who was just knocked out. Golden Boy and Canelo need to re-think the idea of making this fight card a PPV bout because it’s doubtful that fans are going to want to pay to see a mismatch in the main event and then 2 mismatches in the undercard.

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Eddie Hearn says Froch-Groves II could sell out an 80,000 arena in UK! (but will it happen?)

Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn spoke with Sky Sports today, on the subject of whether or not we will see a return bout between bitter British rivals Carl Froch and George Groves. Fans everywhere have craved a sequel ever since the November clash between the two super-middleweights thrilled and then ended controversially, with Froch retaining his super-middleweight titles via what was widely viewed as a premature 9th-round TKO.

Hearn says he feels a return will take place:

“I think there’s a great chance,” Hearn told Sky Sports on the possibility of a Froch-Groves II. “I think it comes down to pride and ego at the end of the day, and of course a lot of money. As a fan and a promoter it’s the biggest fight out there. I know we could have this at a huge stadium and have 60, 70, 80,000 people. It was a tremendous fight last time and taking away the controversy, it was one of the best fights I’ve ever seen. A rematch could be even bigger. If I was a betting man I think we are going to get there. I hope we do.”

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Left-Hook Lounge: Broner/Maidana II, Mayweather/Pacquiao, Top Rank (Cold War)

Kelvin Y. (Atlanta, GA): It was recently reported that Adrien Broner secured his option to take an immediate rematch against Marcos Maidana. What are your thoughts about his chances of winning the rematch and what a win or loss would do for him in the aftermath?

Vivek W. (ESB): A few weeks ago when Broner was humbled by Maidana, I felt at the time that his best move would be to go down to 140lbs and allow himself to slowly develop into the welterweight division. There’s a huge misconception that just because a fighter walks around at a weight, he can fight at that weight. Broner learned the reality behind this flawed train of thought quickly in the first round when he realized he was standing across from a man who could hurt him that he didn’t have as much ability to hurt in return. I expect the rematch to be very interesting, but unlike many, I don’t know that I really see a different outcome in the end. The biggest issues I saw with Broner in the fight were his inability to adapt, his limited head movement, and what I also perceived to be a conditioning issue.

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Pacquiao doubts Mayweather wants to fight him

Manny Pacquiao has reached the point where he now suspects that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is not serious about ever fighting him. Pacquiao notes that Mayweather Jr. has been asking him to agree to an ever increasing amount of things before he’ll agree to fight him. It was originally drug testing, but now Mayweather wants him to leave his promoter Bob Arum before he’ll think about fighting him.

The thing is there’s no guarantee that Mayweather will actually fight Pacquiao even if he does leave Arum. That would put Pacquiao in a situation where he could wind up leaving Arum for no reason if Mayweather decides he still doesn’t want to fight him.

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Mayweather Sr: Amir Khan’s got a glass jaw

Floyd Mayweather Sr. has zero worries about whether his son Floyd Jr. can successfully defeat Amir Khan and Marcos Maidana if he faces either one of them next on May 3rd. It’s widely thought that Mayweather will be fighting one of these two fighters next at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, but Mayweather Sr. doesn’t see either of them as giving Floyd Jr. a competitive fight.

“Both of them easy. Two easy fights; both of them is easy. Maidana might have punching power, but you still can’t hit what you can’t see,” Mayweather Sr. said to Hustleboss. So that’s going to put Maidana under a tree. Amir Khan’s got a glass jaw. And if you look at it too hard, it’ll shatter.”

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Stafford thinks Broner will beat Maidana in the rematch if he starts fast

Mike Stafford, the trainer for former WBA welterweight champion Adrien Broner, thinks he can beat Marcos Maidana in the rematch if Broner comes out quickly fighting at the pace he was at in the last half of his loss to Maidana last month on December 14th in San Antonio, Texas. Broner lost the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision, but you can put most of the responsibility for Broner’s loss on him starting off too slowly in the first 6 rounds.

Broner fought like he was half asleep during the first part of the fight, as he threw few punches and he let Maidana have control over the action. It was like Broner gave the fight to Maidana, at least that part of the fight. When Broner did rally in the 2nd half, he so far behind that he needed a knockout to win, and that wasn’t going to happen.

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Lucian Bute vs. Jean Pascal this Saturday on HBO in Montreal

This Saturday night Jean Pascal (28-2-1, 17 KO’s) and Lucian Bute (31-1, 24 KO’s) will be facing each other in an HBO televised fight from the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada. Pascal, 31, has fought only rarely since his loss to Bernard Hopkins in 2011. Pascal fought once in 2012 in beating Aleksy Kuziemski and once in 2013 in stopping 39-year-old George Blades. It’s been three years since Pascal had his last serious fight, and anything is possible when you have a fighter as rusty as Pascal is.

Pascal is getting Bute at the right time of his career with Bute having been stopped in the 5th round by Carl Froch in May of 2012, and having problems beating Denis Grachev in November of 2012. Bute didn’t look good in the Grachev fight, as he made what should have been an easy fight into a very tough one by fighting so timidly.

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Angulo: I’m the first true 154 lb. fighter Canelo will have faced

One of the knocks on former WBA/WBC light middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s) is that he’s been matched up with mostly welterweights or former welterweights by Golden Boy Promotions since he moved up to the 154 lb. division in 2010. In Canelo’s 11 fights at junior middleweight, he’s only fought 3 actual junior middleweights who had been fighting at that weight for most of their careers.

The other 8 fighters that Canelo has faced have been welterweights that either moved up to fight him for a payday or simply moved up because they weren’t competitive at 147 against the better fighters.

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Marquez not interested in Provodnikov or Alvarado; wants Bradley only

If Bob Arum of Top Rank is interested in having Juan Manuel Marquez (55-7-1, 40 KO’s) fight one of his stable fighters Mike Alvarado or Ruslan Provodnikov next then he’s going to need to really work hard to try and sell those fights to Marquez because he has no interest in fighting either of those guys. Marquez only wants a rematch against WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley, who beat him by a 12 round split decision last October in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Marquez is clearly bothered by the loss to Bradley, because he feels he should have got the decision. But Marquez also believes that he can do a better job in a rematch if he works on his power.

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