You could argue Great Britain saved the best for last in terms of terrific action fights staged in 2013. Last night in Leeds, 33-year-old Darlington man Stuey Hall battled his way to the IBF bantamweight title in an incredibly exciting and at times brutal encounter with South African southpaw Vusi Malinga.
Hall, an unlikely world title challenger, fought through the pain and hindrance of a badly busted up left eye to out-point 34-year-old Malinga in a fight that could be argued as the best to have taken place in the UK this year. After decking his man in the 3rd, Hall had to dig deep to see it through to the end. The two warriors went toe-to-toe and inflicted as much hurt as they could on each other. The heart and courage shown by both was truly remarkable.
The swarmer has always been the natural nemesis of the pure boxer. The pure boxer is unable to keep him off due to his lack of punching power and the pressure fighter is able to do what he does best: SWARM. I feel this is the reason why Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Marcos Maidana would be an epic battle of huge proportions.
With the news of Floyd Mayweather Jr. adding WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana to the potential list of fighters he’ll be choosing from for his next fight on May 3rd, Floyd Mayweather Sr., the trainer and father of Floyd Jr., thinks Maidana is too slow and hittable for his son. Floyd Sr. saw Maidana’s win over Adrien Broner last Saturday night, and he feels the only reason Maidana won the fight was because Broner did everything wrong that you could think of.
Bob Arum of Top Rank thinks Adrien Broner (27-1, 22 KO’s) isn’t the guy that many people in the boxing world thought he was before his recent loss to Marcos Maidana. Arum wasn’t surprised in the least by Broner’s loss because he had noted then kinds of opposition that he’d been fighting up until the Maidana fight, and he felt that he hadn’t shown that he was anywhere near being a great fighter. Arum saw a lot of other fighters who he felt were better than Broner.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has said that WBO light welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov (23-2, 16 KO’s) is one of the names that is a possibility to fight Manny Pacquiao on April 12th, along with Juan Manuel Marquez and Tim Bradley. But it’s unknown how serious Arum is about potentially having a puncher like Provodnikov face his money fighter Pacquiao.But in the meantime, Provodnikov has accepted a challenge from one of Arum’s fighters Brandon Rios (31-2-1, 23 KO’s to fight him, presumably in a bout that could happen next on the undercard of Pacquiao’s April 12th card in Las Vegas, Nevada.
It’s that time of the year again: when fight fans take a look back at what went down in the fistic calendar. 2013 was, in many years one of the best for boxing in a long time. We saw some great action fights, we saw some superb displays of The Sweet Science, we saw a number of electrifying KO’s and we saw our share of controversy.
Every December the boxing world buzz burns hot with the topic of who will Floyd Mayweather face next and what are the chances that it will be Manny Pacquiao.
The stage has been set for fireworks in Accra on Friday evening following a successful weigh-in at the Media Centre of the Accra Sports Stadium on Thursday afternoon by Prezmyslaw Opalach of Poland and Tanzanian slugger, Maisha Samson.