Former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (26-2, 24 KO’s) has set a goal for himself in his fight against #8 WBC Manuel Charr (23-1, 13 KO’s) next month on June 29th at the Manchester Arena (formerly M.E.N Arena), Manchester, Lancashire, United Kingdom.
Haye, 32, wants to improve upon the job WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko did last September when he tore Charr’s face to ribbons in stopping him in the 4th round.
WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez wants and needs a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) in order for Canelo to transition from being just a regular Showtime fighter to a pay per view fighter. However, Canelo expects Mayweather to go back up to 154 to fight him if he says yes to a fight in September instead of Canelo dropping a little weight and fighting Mayweather at 147.
Robert Garcia, the well-known trainer of Brandon Rios and many other fighters, doesn’t think Mayweather should up in weight to fight Canelo because he sees the 22-year-old Mexican as being too heavy for Mayweather.
(Photos courtesy PR Best Boxing Promotions/Joel Colon) Billy Nelson, the trainer of WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) feels that his opponent for Saturday night Jose Gonzalez (22-0, 17 KO’s) isn’t the puncher that many people think is. In fact, Nelson thinks Gonzalez isn’t even as big a puncher as former WBO super featherweight champion Roman Martinez, who Burns defeated by a close 12 round unanimous decision in 2010 to take his title.
Nelson said to RingTV “Ricky has a superb chin and in my opinion Gonzalez doesn’t hit as hard as Martinez. To this day, Roman is the hardest puncher Ricky has faced by a long way, but he still couldn’t get the job done.”
Showtime Sports big time boss vice president Stephen Espinosa came out of the woodwork on Friday quash the rumors about the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Robert Guerrero fight resulting in less than 1 million pay per view buys on Showtime from last Saturday night. Espinosa says the fight did no less than 1 million PPV buys, although he’s still not sure what the full tally is as of now, but it is more than 1 million.
The MGM Grand boasts in excess of 6500 guestrooms. Its sprawling casino is an endless maze of over 2500 illuminated gaming machines. No less than 19 restaurants cater for the discerning appetites of its multi-national clientele. Considering such extravagant interiors it is by no coincidence that this past week the largest advertisement conceivable was draped over its glazed exterior bearing the proud caption: The Home of the Champion.
The pound for pound king put his own spin on the famous acronym when he coined the phrase ‘Mayweather Gets Money’, referring to his guaranteed 32 million dollar jackpot. The Grand Garden Arena has become the workplace of choice for the unbeaten champion with his last 7 contests all selling out the 16,800 capacity venue.
With the back and forth banter between WBA 147lb champ Paulie Malignaggi and WBC 135lb champ Adrien Broner set aside, it looks like this could be one hell of a scrap. Malignaggi is the bigger man and Broner is moving up 2 weight classes to face him. But…when you look a little closer at this matchup there are red flags all around that will make it a very hard fight for Malignaggi to win, in terms of style matchup, ring generalship, punching power and skills in-general.
In boxing and amateur wrestling it is common practice to train down to your figting weight shedding pounds and water to make weight and thereafter rehydrating the body regaining some of that lost weight. With this in mind Broner has been adding weight to his 5’7″ frame so he can train down to the 147lb limit, prompting Malignaggi to say “The only training that Broner is doing is at the buffet”.
By Vitali Shaposhnikov: It appears as thought Deontay Wilder has recently joined the criminal record boxing club. Wilder was arrested for domestic assault in Las Vegas, but was later released after a very hefty jail bond fee of $15,000 was paid. He has now been scheduled to appear in court on July 3.
Thus far there are no details available. Rumor mill has it that he was strangling someone, and police were called. His trainer Jay Deas claimed that he has no information on what had happened, and only knew that Wilder was heading to Vegas for the Mayweather Jr. bout.
By Vitali Shaposhnikov: I assume that at this point, most of you already know that Manny Pacquiao and Brandon Rios are slated to meet inside the ring come November 24th. This will be a very unusual fight in a sense that it will be taking place in China, far away from where both fighters are used to going to work. This may turn out to be a bad decision, taking the sport of boxing away from where both men earned their status, but Top Rank is convinced that this decision will yield much better profits by lowering the tax fees.
Brandon Rios is a well established fighter, and with a record of 31 wins and only one loss (lost his last fight to Mike Alvarado), it’s only fair to take him as a serious threat to any fighter. Of course the mystery of how he gets to be the first in line to fight Pacquiao after a loss is a mystery to many boxing fans and analysts.
After this past Saturday night, when Floyd Mayweather Jr. made his fight against Robert Guerrero look like a sparring session rather than a world championship bout, the mystery of how to beat Floyd remains in tact.
Every fighter has promised to do what Floyd’s previous opponent failed to deliver, but thus cycle has been ongoing for all of his 44 fights. Of course knowing Mayweather Jr., he is as much a businessman as he is a fighter, and he knows how to make them most of his promotional effort.
One of the main names mentioned for Mayweather Jr. as the next potential challenger is Saul Alvarez, but it seems as though Amir Khan in more on the Money Team’s radar as this point in time.
Marv G. (Charlotte, NC): Despite the layoff, time in jail, and partying, I really thought Mayweather looked incredible. Do you think Guerrero was just a joke? Or do you think Floyd is really that good?
Vivek W. (ESB): We’ve seen quite a few fighters around the sport enter the ring with far less time off and the effects the layoff is typically very much pronounced. I don’t care who you are and what your profession is, you’d be hard-pressed to see anyone take that amount of time off and still be able to execute at such a high level. I saw a few things that let me know Mayweather isn’t totally who he used to be. But in the end, what I saw most is that he doesn’t have to be. Michael Jordan at 90% was still heads above everyone across from him. In the case of Floyd Mayweather, I don’t think things are any different.