#11 WBA, Matthew Macklin (29-4, 20 KO’s) will be getting a title shot next month against WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (26-0, 23 KO’s) on June 29th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Macklin is mostly known to U.S casual boxing fans for his spirited effort in dragging Sergio Martinez into the 11th round last year in March before getting stopped by him.
Although Macklin lost the fight, he got a lot of credit for having given Martinez a tough time along the way. Now, however, Macklin is going to have to prove himself again, but this time against a younger fighter with more power and arguably more skills than Martinez in Gennady Golovkin.
For some reason the World Boxing Council (WBC) has dropped Amir Khan from their top 15 welterweight rankings after his struggle to defeat 33-year-old Julio Diaz last month on April 27th. Before that fight the WBC had elevated Khan to #2 in their welterweight rankings despite the fact that Khan had never fought at welterweight before and had lost two out of his last three fights.
After seeing how exhausted WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez looked in his fights against Austin Trout and Shane Mosley, I think Miguek Cotto (37-4, 30 KO’s) has a good chance of beating Canelo in September if he ends up being the one that faces him, and right now it’s looking like Cotto could be the guy that gets picked.
Former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan makes it perfectly clear that he doesn’t have even the slightest amount of interest in facing fellow Brit Kell Brook at any time in the future.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is saying that former IBF/WBO super bantamweight Nonito Donaire (31-2, 20 KO’s) will be back in the ring in either October or November this year against a still to be determined opponent. It won’t be newly crowned WBC super bantamweight champion Victor Terrazas because he’ll likely be facing newly signed Top Rank fighter Vic Darchinyan.
Mike Stafford, the trainer for Adrien Broner (26-0, 22 KO’s), sees Broner as being a lot stronger in moving up to 147 to face WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-4, 7 KO’s) next month on June 22nd in their fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
If you ask IBF light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (31-1-1, 15 KO’s) if he’s worried about what he’s going to be facing this Saturday night when he steps inside the ring to mix it up against the power punching Lucas Matthysse (33-2, 31 KO’s), he’d probably laugh because he has absolutely no fear of Mattysse at all.
Floyd Mayweather Jr’s team reportedly gave WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez the option to fight him at 147 lbs. on September 14th if he wants to get the biggest payday of his career. Canelo is only 22-year-old and has no pay per view history behind him to show that he’s a proven money maker.
Promoter Eddie Hearn is interested in matching his very lucky fighter WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (36-2, 11 KO’s) against former lightweight contender Gavin Rees (37-2-1, 18 KO’s) this coming September. Rees is coming off of a 5th round knockout loss to WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner last February in a fight where Rees looked terrible in before getting knocked out.