Bute and Pascal on target at weigh-in

Former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (31-1, 24 KO’s) and Jean Pascal (28-2-1, 17 KO’s) both successfully weighed in on Friday for their clash tomorrow night at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. Bute, who is coming of lackluster 12 round decision win over Denis Grachev over a year ago, weighed in at 173.6 lbs. For his part, the 31-year-old Pascal weighed in right at the limit at 175 lbs.

This was a fight that was really looked forward to for many years in Canada, but due to Pascal’s loss to Bernard Hopkins, and Bute’s defeat at the hands of Carl Froch, a lot of the excitement that would have been there for this fight has been lost. The fight is basically 3 years too late. Pascal has become a part-time fighter who rarely fights nowadays, and he hasn’t taken on a good opponent in 3 years since his loss to Bernard Hopkins. Bute was kind of exposed in the Froch fight in terms of his chin.

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Eddie Chambers and the resurrection

Having been told a while ago that Eddie Chambers was thinking of joining Team Fury, I thought “Astute of him. Where has he been?”. Here was a Heavyweight fighter with a record of W36 L4 who had been beaten last year in his only fight of 2013, after a bad decision to move down to Cruiserweight. Were the gears grinding down on “Fast Eddie’s” career? At 31, and seemingly losing love for the sport, Eddie was squandering the talent he had been given.

I had had a conversation with Peter Fury a few months ago after Chambers had been part of the Fury training camp for the, ultimately, disastrous Haye debacle. He was very impressed with Eddie’s skills and attitude. But you don’t need Peter to tell you Eddie can box/fight/win. Even a layman can see that Eddie Chambers has been in with the very best the sport has had to offer over the past 6 years: Wladimir Klitschko, Alexander Dimitrenko, Alexander Povetkin, Tomasz Adamek, Samuel Peter.

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Pascal vs. Bute: A Canadian Super Fight

For many boxing fans stateside and abroad this Saturday’s HBO fight between Jean Pascal and Lucian Bute will be just another fight that should produce some form of entertainment.

To the fans that put the North in North America this fight might as well be their version of Sugar Ray Leonard versus Marvelous Marvin Hagler or Oscar De La Hoya versus Floyd Mayweather.

This is not just a run of the mill crossroads type battle to the loyal Canadian boxing rube. For them it’s a legacy fight with winner going down in history as the best and most popular fighter of the last five or six years.

Obviously Adonis Stevenson, who has a solid fan base but his past keeps him from being beloved, surely will have something to say about legacy before it’s written in the Canadian history permanently.

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Mayweather looks like he’ll be facing Khan next

Floyd Mayweather Jr. will likely be disappointing boxing fans by announcing that his next fight on May 3rd will be Amir Khan within the week. ESPN’s Brian Campbell is saying that it appears that Khan will be the guy that Mayweather Jr. will be facing next instead of Marcos Maidana or Danny Garcia.

Campbell is well aware that this will be a controversial pick due to Khan’s defeats to Danny Garcia and Lamont Peterson, but that won’t matter. Mayweather will be choosing him any way.

“Unless Money May has a secret plan he has yet to be leaked in any fashion or any way, Khan, all signs point to him as the next opponent for him,” Campbell said to ESPN. “He’s somewhat of a controversial pick if it ends up being him because, although very talented, Khan is coming off of a pair of losses in recent memory and he’s bounced back with two comeback fights. But really he’s not shown that he’s in his top form…So it’s really Khan or nothing at this point.”

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Chavez Jr.-Vera II Press Conference Quotes

On the heels of their controversial collision which resulted in a hotly disputed decision, former World Boxing Council (WBC) middleweight champion and Son of the Legend JULIO CÉSAR CHÁVEZ JR. and Top-Five contender and two-fisted Texan BRYAN VERA will square off in a 12-round super middleweight battle in a rematch to settle their score once and for all. This time Vera will enjoy the home court advantage when they meet, Saturday, March 1, at the Alamodome in San Antonio, TX.

Chávez Jr. vs. Vera II will be televised live on HBO World Championship Boxing, beginning at 9:45 p.m. ET/PT. The telecast will open with two-time Ukrainian Olympic gold medalist and 2013 Prospect of the Year, VASYL LOMACHENKO, in only his second professional bout, challenging World Boxing Organization (WBO) featherweight champion ORLANDO SALIDO.

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Weights: Redkach vs. Luis

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Jan. 16, 2014) – The eight fighters featured in tomorrow night’s ShoBox: The New Generation live telecast on SHOWTIME (10 p.m. ET/PT, delayed on the West Coast) made weight Thursday at Jerry Lee Lewis Cafe & Honky Tonk in downtown Memphis.

In an eagerly awaited 10-round main event tomorrow/Friday, Jan. 17, highly regarded, hard-hitting lightweight Ivan “The Terrible’’ Redkach (15-0, 13 KO’s), of Los Angeles, by way of Ukraine, puts his undefeated record on the line against once-beaten Tony “Lightning” Luis (17-1, 7 KO’s), of Cornwall, Ontario, Canada.

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Jones Jr. thinks Pascal can become a huge star

While many boxing fans see former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal as a fighter who has had his 15 minutes of fame and is on the downside of his career, Roy Jones Jr., who Pascal was compared to earlier in his career, thinks that the 31-year-old Pascal can still become a huge star if he can beat former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute this Saturday night, and then beat Adonis Stevenson and Sergey Kovalev. That’s a lot easier said than done, because Pascal looked terrible in getting beaten by Bernard Hopkins in 2011, and he’s done next to nothing since losing that fight.

“If Pascal wins this [Bute] and goes out and gets Stevenson next, it would be a big deal again in Quebec,” Jones Jr. said to Yahoo Sports. “But if he puts together some impressive fights and markets himself, it could be a big deal everywhere. And I think it’s a lot better to be a big deal everywhere.”

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Ghana’s Maxwell Awuku taunts WBA Interim champ Gamboa

Maxwell Awuku, the world title chasing Ghanaian Super Featherweight has thrown a challenge to the elite class of boxers in his division, declaring a readiness to face any of them in the ring but most notably Awuku wants to face Yuriorkis Gamboa, the Interim WBA Lightweight champion.

Awuku, a veteran of over a decade as a professional boxer having first taken to the ring way back in 2002 and who previously held both WBA Pan-Africa and WBO Africa Junior Lightweight belts believes he has gained enough experience to be able to match the elites in the Super Featherweight division.

“Talk about WBC champion, Takashi Miura, IBF king, Rances Barthelemy or WBO champ, Miguel Angel Garcia and I will tell you I can face any of them and emerge victorious. All I ask for is the opportunity to fight any of them anywhere,” Awuku said in an exclusive interview in Accra.

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Tim Bradley asking for $10 million for Pacquiao fight?

WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s) is reportedly asking for $10 million for his rematch against Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KO’s) on April 12th, according to Mydesert.com. If this really true then it makes a lot of sense why the Pacquiao-Bradley fight isn’t a done deal.

$10 million for a fighter like Bradley is an incredible amount given that he’s not proven himself to be a a huge star in the sport. That kind of money goes to guys like Saul “Canelo” Alavarez and Miguel Cotto. In other words, fighters who have proven that they can bring in massive amounts of fans for their fights. I don’t know that Bradley is capable of attracting huge audiences when not matched against guys like Pacquiao or Juan Manuel Marquez. He’s someone that needs help to bring in fans.

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Mikey Garcia – Juan Carlos Burgos Interview Transcript

Undefeated World Boxing Organization (WBO) junior lightweight champion and 2013 Fighter of the Year nominee MIKEY GARCIA (33-0, 28 KOs), of Oxnard, Calif., and two-time world title challenger and current No. 1 contender JUAN CARLOS BURGOS (30-1-2, 20 KOs), of Tijuana, México, hosted an international Media Conference Call from their respective training camps on Tuesday. Garcia and Burgos are in the final weeks of training before their world title fight collision at The Mecca of Boxing — Madison Square Garden in New York.

The Garcia – Burgos world junior lightweight title fight takes place on Saturday, January 25 and will be televised live on HBO Boxing After Dark®, beginning at 9:45 p.m. ET/PT. The telecast will open with a 10-round battle between undefeated heavyweight contenders Bryant Jennings and Artur Szpilka.

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