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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Latest Prizefighter tournament line-up complete: James Toney enjoys star status

Fight fans can expect an interesting, hopefully exciting, latest instalment of the popular “Prizefighter” tournament on November 14th. Set to go out, as usual, live on Sky Sports, the latest tournament is another international heavyweights edition, with a Team USA Vs. Team UK element added for further intrigue.

The full eight-man line-up has been confirmed by Matchroom Sports as follows:

James Toney (USA)
Jason Gavern (USA)
Brian Minto (USA)
Damian “Bolo” Wills (USA) – (stepping in for Sherman “Tank” Williams, who pulled out for some reason)

Larry Olubamiwo (UK)
Michael Sprott (UK) – (stepping in for an injured Sam Sexton)
Matt Legg (UK)
Tom Little (UK)

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Rocky Martinez / Mikey Garcia Interview Transcript

On behalf of Top Rank® and PR Best Boxing we would like to welcome you to today’s conference call with WBO junior lightweight champion Roman “Rocky” Martinez and challenger undefeated former WBO featherweight champion Mikey Garcia. This is the main event of the tripleheader televised live on HBO® Saturday night beginning at 9:30 PM ET/PT from Corpus Christi, Texas. Immediately following the tripleheader telecast on HBO will be the debut of the four-part all-access series “24/7: Pacquiao-Rios”

TODD DUBOEF: We have a terrific show on Saturday night, which opens up with a fantastic fight between the two top-rated contenders — both undefeated former U.S. Olympians — Vanes Martirosyan and Demetrius Andrade battling for the WBO Junior Middleweight title in a division that is getting a lot of interest.

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Donaire/Darchinyan Interview Transcript

We have a terrific card coming up this Saturday at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, Texas, which will be televised Live on HBO® beginning at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT. The telecast will open up with the two top-rated contenders — both undefeated — in the junior middleweight division fighting for the vacant WBO title and coincidentally they are both former U.S. Olympians – Vanes “The Nightmare” Martirosyan taking on Demetrius “Boo Boo” Andrade; that will be followed by Nonito and Vic in their rematch; and the telecast will conclude with Roman “Rocky” Martinez defending his WBO junior lightweight title against former WBO featherweight champion, the undefeated Mikey Garcia. Robert Garcia will have his hands full Saturday night as he will be working the corners for both Donaire and Garcia.

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