HAMMER-FISTED Aussie contender Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne is happy to step up to the challenge offered by Tyson Fury on Twitter.
The giant Englishman recently used the micro blogging site to set out the names on his wish list for 2014.
Browne was mentioned alongside Deontay Wilder, Dereck Chisora and Roy Jones Jnr and say he would gladly accept if the fight was offered to him.
2013 will go down as one of the best years of boxing in recent history. Thanks to big fights, big shocks and big knockouts, fight fans got everything they could have wanted in 2013.
Floyd Mayweather took on young pretender Saul Alvarez in a genuine super fight, Carl Froch participated in two legendary fights, whilst new stars such as Mikey Garcia, Sergey Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson made themselves certified stars of modern day boxing. Finally, the likes of Guillermo Rigondeaux, Jhonny Gonzalez and Marcos Maidana each pulled off stunning upsets that switched up boxing’s hierarchy.
2014 looks to continue in the same manner. Floyd Mayweather is set to fight twice again this year, whilst the retirements of Vitali Klitschko and David Haye mean new faces will compete for titles in the heavyweight division this year. With a crowd of faces joining and dropping out of the 2013 pound-for-pound rankings who will be the ones to make waves this year? Here are five fighters to watch in 2014.
Showtime President of Sports Stephen Espinoza doesn’t have a lot of faith than we’ll be seeing a fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao in he near future unless Pacquiao bites the bullet and chooses to leave Top Rank. Espinoza sees that as being the issue that is keeping the fight between Manny and Floyd from taking place. Espinoza has no doubts in his mind that Mayweather would take the fight with Pacquiao immediately.
Espinoza could be right. If Pacquiao was with Golden Boy Promotions are some other promotional company instead of Top Rank, he’d probably agree to take the fight with him in a heartbeat. After all, it’s a fight that would give Mayweather a huge payday if he could get it. We just saw in his last fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez that Mayweather isn’t afraid to take on a tough opponent, if it means that he’s going to get a big payday out of the fight.
Former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal feels that WBO 175 lb. champion Sergey Kovalev (23-0-1, 21 KO’s) should be seen as an untested fighter until he beats an actual world champion to prove himself. To Pascal, he doesn’t know how good Kovalev is because he’s never been in with an opponent to where he could evaluate his talent level. Right now Pascal sees Kovalev as still having a question mark over his head about how good he is until he faces his first test at light heavyweight.
“On paper, he’s untested,” Pascal said to hustleboss. “Until he’s been tested, we’ll never know his real value. Until he beats a champion or a former champion or a decent champion who has been tested before, I don’ think he’s earned the right to be considered the guy in the division.”
There had been talk of Roy Jones Jr. fighting former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva in a boxing match in what likely would have been a terrible mismatch due to Jones’ superior skills. However, the chances of a fight between Silva and Jones Jr. would seem remote at best at this time following Anderson Silva’s gruesome left leg injury he suffered last night against UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman in UFC 168 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Silva attempted a leg kick with his left leg, but Weidman blocked it with his left knee causing Silva’s left shin to fold in two.
Silva reportedly suffered a broken tibia and fibula, and it’s expected to be at least 6 months before he recovers from the injury. The injury reminded me of how former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theisman suffered a broken left leg in November 1985 when he was tackled by New York Giants players Lawrence Taylor and Harry Carson in a Monday night game.
While Manny Pacquiao’s close adviser Michael Koncz met with Top Rank promoter Bob Arum this past week to discuss the two names – Tim Bradley and Ruslan Provodnikov – that Arum has for Pacquiao’s next bout April 12th in Las Vegas, Nevada, Pacquiao is still very much interested in fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. That’s his first choice of who he’d like to fight, but unfortunately Mayweather’s not on Arum’s list of opponents for him to fight. It’s going to be one of Arum’s Top Rank fighters that Pacquiao faces next.
Earlier today Pacquiao was asked if he’d like to fight Mayweather, and he said “Anytime. We’re just waiting.”
British fight promoter Frank Warren listed a number of fights that he would like to see take place in 2014, and one which is potential math-up between James DeGale (17-1, 11 KO’s) and the unbeaten middleweight #4 WBO, #11 IBF, #11 WBC, #15 WBA, Billy Joe Saunders (19-0, 10 KO’s). Warren sees this as a good fight that would do well in the UK in terms of making money and pleasing the fans.
The 6’0 1/2″ DeGale, #2 WBO, #3 WBC, #7 IBF, fights at super middleweight and would have a slight size advantage over the 5’11” Saunders. Both guys are southpaws, so it wouldn’t be a case of one of them being thrown off by the southpaw style of the other. That wouldn’t be the excuse for the loser one would hope.
IBF cruiserweight champion Yoan Pablo Hernandez (28-1, 14 KO’s) will be back in action on March 8th against an opponent still to be determined in Stuttgart, Germany, according to Fightnews. Hernandez, 29, is coming off of a 10th round knockout win over Alexander Alekseev last month in Bamberg, Germany. Hernandez knocked Alekseev down three times in the fight before the bout was eventually halted in the 3rd.
The fight showed pretty clearly that the 6’4″ southpaw Hernandez needs to start facing better opposition he’s defended his title three times in beating Steve Cunningham, Troy Ross and now Alekseev, but he’s not been in with anyone really good that could challenge him. It would be nice to see Hernandez against his first quality challenger like Ola Afolabi or Rakhim Chakhkiev, as both of them are worlds better than the guys Hernandez has been fighting.
Unbeaten British giant Tyson Fury is ready to put a largely frustrating and unproductive 2013 behind him and enjoy a “big” 2014. Fury, who last fought in April of 2013 (getting up from an early knockdown to halt Steve Cunningham in New York) saw long months of his upwardly mobile career go down the drain due to his British super-fight with David Haye falling apart not once but twice.
Fury, understandably angry at the Haye fight disappearing (apparently for good, what with Haye’s shoulder injury) even announced his retirement from boxing on his official Twitter page. Fury, though, a born fighting man as he is so proud to point out, has forgotten all about hanging ‘em up and has been on Twitter again. Fury announced today how he will “be back in Feb.” and how he “can’t wait for 2014.”
Amir Khan’s trainer Virgil Hunter doesn’t see anything wrong with Khan’s ability to take hard shots at all. In fact, he credits him with the ability to get up from shots that would put other fights down and unable to get up from the knockdown. For this reason, Hunter thinks that Khan is a very good option for Floyd Mayweather Jr’s next fight on May 3rd. Hunter thinks Khan will get up from pretty much any knockdown because of his recuperative powers.
It’s unclear if that’s a good thing if Khan is too staggered to put up a fight. We saw Khan get knocked down several times against Danny Garcia last year, and he was ineffective after the first knockdown. He was just getting up and getting knocked back down again by Garcia.