Garcia stops Martinez; Donaire TKOs Darchinyan in 9th; Andrade beats Martirosyan

donaire1 As expected, Mikey Garcia (33-0, 28 KO’s) stopped WBO super featherweight champion Roman “Rocky” Martinez (27-2-2, 16 KO’s) in the 8th round on Saturday night at the American Bank Center, in Corpus Christi, Texas, USA. Garcia knocked Martinez down with a big left hook to the body in the 8th round. Martinez wanted to get up but he was too hurt to rise to his feet. The fight was then halted by referee Lawrence Cole 0:56 of the round.

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Nonito Donaire (32-2, 21 KO’s) looked like a shell of himself in having to go life and death to stop a way past his best Vic Darchinyan (39-6-1, 28 KO’s). Donaire caught Darchinyan with a left hand in the 9th to put him down. Donaire then loaded up with a series of single shots agaisnt a badly hurt Darchinhyan until referee Lawrence Cole stepped in and stopped the bout with Darchinyan still on his feet. The official time of the stoppage was 2:06.

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Mayweather-Khan is on for May 3rd in Las Vegas, according to The Daily Express!

According to an article from UK newspaper The Daily Express – an article that has been read by many people online – the Floyd Mayweather-Amir Khan fight that has been talked about as a possibility for some time will indeed go ahead next May.

The publication reports how the fight has been “finalised” for May 3rd at Mayweather’s second home of The MGM Grand in Vegas. No source is cited in the article but in truth it will not shock too many fans if the paper is correct and hasn’t jumped the gun. Many fans will, however, be angry if Khan gets this massive opportunity.

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Nonito Donaire vs. Vic Darchinyan II: Revisionist historian

On July 7th, 2007, a scarcely known Filipino fighter named Nonito Donaire challenged the consensus regarded “Lord of the Flies”, Vic Darchinyan, for his IBF 112 pound title, and defeated the heavily favored champion with one swift left hook in the fifth round of their scheduled twelve round contest.

Today, it’s hard not to recognize the ripple effect of that impactful punch. Both fighters ended up going in two different directions professionally as a result of that significant blow to the chin of the formerly undefeated and highly regarded champion.

Since that fateful day, Nonito Donaire has gone on to compete in many lucrative bouts on the biggest stage of boxing, picking up three more division world titles and becoming one of the more highly regarded fighters in the entire sport.

In contrast, the “Raging Bull” from Armenia has garnered a respectable record of 11-4-1 with six knock-outs since the initial bout with the “Filipino Flash”, but has fallen short of most initial observations as one of the most feared pound for pound punchers in the entire sport, circa 2007.

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Photos – Weigh-in: Garcia-Martinez, Donaire-Darchinyan, Martirosyan-Andrade

Boxing returns to the south this weekend in Corpus Christi, TX for another fall Top Rank tripleheader showdown on HBO Boxing After Dark.

Headlining the card is the WBO Super Featherweight title fight between Mikey Garcia and Roman “Rocky” Martinez. After losing his Featherweight title at the scales earlier this year, Garcia makes a move to the Super Featherweight division to challenge Martinez in another Mexico VS. Puerto Rico clash.

Co-headling the card is a rematch between Nonito Donaire and Vic Darchinyan. In 2007, Donaire derailed the Darchinyan express with a vicious left hook to end their first encounter via KO win for Donaire. Six years in the making, Darchinyan gets his chance at redemption. Having never fought at Featherweight, it will be interesting to see how Darchinyan’s chin holds up at the new weight. A heavy puncher himself, Darchinyan is oozing with confidence by ensuring a victory for himself and Armenia.

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Robert Garcia: “Darchinyan Really Hates Nonito Donaire”

Team Donaire are not taking Vic Darchinyan lightly, assuming that the bad blood between the two fighters makes Vic more dangerous than ever before. Nonito Donaire’s trainer Robert Garcia believes that finally getting the rematch that Darchinyan had wanted so badly for all these years, is likely to push Vic to new higher limits in preparing for this fight.

“He really hates Nonito. We got to be very well prepared and very careful for a dangerous fight. Darchinyan could be a very dangerous opponent because he has nothing to lose. And I’m sure he trained like nothing before, because he wants this rematch so bad. Now that he’s got it, he’s going to do anything possible to win the fight,” said Robert Garcia in a recent interview with Hustle Boss.

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Roach: “Mayweather is in the Same Position Pacquiao Is”

roach45 While I was sure that Mayweather Jr. vs. Pacquiao was nothing but a fantasy at this point in time, it seems as though Freddie Roach hasn’t yet let go of the possibility of the fight happening in the near future:

“Every big fight that was supposed to happen in boxing happens somewhere along the way, I just hope this one isn’t going to happen too late when they’re both washed up and not the same. I still have hope. Mayweather is in the same position (Pacquiao) is. You’ve only got eight fighters in the world that can sell pay-per-view and make money. That’s why I give it a shot,” stated Roach.

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Mayweather’s Speed is Calculated – Khan’s is Jittery

khan11 Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer recently offered his opinion that Amir Khan was faster than Floyd “Money” Mayweather, Jr. Are you buying it? Inside the ring, the truth is that there are two kinds of speed. One is measured and calculating. The other is just plain jittery speed.

The first involves cold blooded focusing. Nothing takes this speedster out of his game plan. He ignores the crowd and the noise. His movements are smooth and for a reason. He doesn’t waste motion. He avoids being duped or a victim of feints. He throws punches with mathematical precision, taking advantage of mistakes and traps, not wasting energy. He always seems to be in control, set and on balance. He makes the difficult look easy. Often he is described with superlatives such as genius, maestro, and poetry in motion. That’s Money.

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Donaire vs. Darchinyan 2 & Garcia vs. Martinez: A bridge to nowhere

Normally when two elite fighters are co-featured on a card together you can expect the winners (favorites) to be matched up in a (super) fight of sorts at some point in the near future.

It’s a formula that’s been used to build or as Bob Arum would say “marinate”, certain fights that have been labeled by the fans as must see fights.

Usually the promoters put each fighter in a showcase type fight for future highlight replays that will be used as fuel to stoke the fire of a talked about fight.

Some fights never come to fruition due to the inner political issues of the business of boxing.

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Andre Ward open to fight against Bernard Hopkins

ward544 WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (26-0, 14 KO’s) and his promoter Dan Goosen are both open to a fight against IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (54-6-2, 32 KO’s) if he’s game.

Ward says he’d like to take on the younger fighters, but he’d take the fight against the 48-year-old Hopkins. His promoter Goosen thinks it would be an excellent fight and believes they could make it for pay-per-view.

Ward said via Fightnews “I don’t have a desire to call Bernard out, but I am a fighter. If it makes financial sense, I’ll step to the plate. I’m more interested in fighting guys from my era, but at the same time I don’t back down from fights.”

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Cotto receives $10 million offer to fight Canelo from Golden Boy

cotto67 Miguel Cotto (31-4, 31 KO’s) may have lost two out of his last three fights but that’s not stopping Golden Boy Promotions from offering him huge money to fight their young star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s). Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer met with Cotto this week at Golden Boy headquarters and offered Cotto more than $10 million for him to fight the 23-year-old Canelo. Schaefer also mentioned a possible fight for Cotto against Floyd Mayweather Jr. if he agrees to the Canelo fight.

Instead of readily agreeing to the deal, Cotto reportedly said he would think it over. He’s interested in fighting WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez in order to try and capture a 4th division world title, and that would give Cotto the opportunity of realizing his dreams.

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