Robert Guerrero vs. Andre Berto: Gogue’s big fight preview

Robert Guerrero vs. Andre Berto: Gogue’s big fight preview By Joseph Herron – Photos by Tom Hogan/Hoganphotos/Golden Boy Promotions – Tonight at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, California, four division world champion Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (30-1-1, 18 KOs) will put his interim WBC Welterweight title on the line when he faces arguably his toughest test to date, former WBC 147 pound title holder Andre Berto (28-1, 22 KOs).

The highly anticipated match-up will air on HBO World Championship Boxing at 10PM EST/PST (delayed on the American west coast), after Golden Boy prospect Keith Thurman squares off against former 147 pound champion Carlos Quintana in the evening’s co-main event.

While the twelve round main event should answer many questions surrounding both competing fighters, expert trainer James Gogue believes that Guerrero and Berto respectively have a lot riding on this performance.

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If Hatton loses to Senchenko tonight you have to look at his weight loss as a huge factor

By Michael Collins: Ricky Hatton is staging his comeback tonight against Vyacheslav Senchenko in Manchester, England, and Hatton has set it up to where he might be vulnerable to getting knocked out cold once again due to a variety of factors. The first thing that Hatton has going for him in this fight is that he’s coming off of a 3 1/2 year retirement without a tune-up.

Senchenko is definitely a world class fighter despite being manhandled by the light hitting Paulie Malignaggi in his last fight. Senchenko is at least fringe level world class, and that’s more than good enough to beat a short, rusty fighter like Hatton, whose best weight at 140, not 147.

Hatton didn’t want to bother with taking a tune-up fight and is jumping straight into the fire so to speak with the Senchenko bout. That’s obviously not the smartest thing that a person can do. I know Hatton likes to do things his own way, but this is one thing that you don’t want to mess around with. Another problem that Hatton has for this fight is all the weight that he had to take off just to make 147.

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Froch hoping nothing bad happens to Hatton tonight

By Michael Collins: Ricky Hatton is taking a considerable risk in making a comeback tonight against Vyacheslav Senchenko after a long period of time out of the ring. IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch is just hoping that Hatton can come out of this fight in one piece and doesn’t get hurt like he was in his last fight against Manny Pacquiao in 2009.

Speaking to the standard.co.uk, Froch said “If Ricky wants to come back that’s his decision. Good luck to him. But let’s just hope he is in as good shape as he looks and that he doesn’t get hurt.”

Hatton does look to be in outstanding condition judging by how good he looked during Friday’s weigh-in. However, there’s a big difference from being in good shape and being in fighting shape. Hatton looks like he’s taken off a lot of weight, but we don’t know how he’ll react when he starts taking head shots and how he’ll look once the fight goes past the 3rd round.

When you’ve got an older fighter that is making a comeback after years out of the ring like Hatton, they tend to look decent for about three rounds.

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Kwahu Tyson beats Okai to win Ghana Light Heavyweight title

By Prince Dornu-Leiku – Emmanuel Omari Danso, the Ghana-based boxer known by the nickname Kwahu Tyson has realized the first of many ambitions after claiming the vacant Ghana Light Heavyweight championship with victory over David Okai.

Unbeaten Kwahu Tyson (16-0, 16 KOs) has vowed to live by his American namesake, Iron Mike Tyson and destroy opponents on his way to achieving the much craved dream of becoming boxing world champion.

Boasting a 100% knockout record from the 16 fights of his career thus far, Danso was at his destructive best even as Okai took him the furthest in his career before eventually succumbing in the penultimate round. Danso claimed the national Light Heavyweight belt via the 11th round technical knockout win against Okai at the Will Power Boxing Complex in Accra.

It also improved perfect record holder, Omari Danso to a number 2 in the African Light Heavyweight rankings but his team are patient to let him develop before thinking of taking on the best in the world.
“Locally there is no opponent again for him because he has beaten them all so maybe we shall look for opponents around the neighbouring countries like Nigeria, Benin, then go for the Africa title next year

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Weigh-in: Berto vs. Guerrero, Thurman vs. Quintana

By Bill Phanco: Andre Berto (28-1, 22 KO’s) and WBC interim welterweight champion Robert Guerrero (30-1-1, 18 KO’s) came in under the welterweight 147 lb limit today during their weigh-in.

Guerrero weighed 146.4 lbs and Berto came in at 146.8. The card also has highly hyped unbeaten junior middleweight Keith Thurman (18-0, 17 KO’s) fighting WBO NABO light middleweight champion Carlos Quintana (29-3, 23 KO’s) for his strap. Thurman weighed in at 151.25 lbs, and Quintana at 152.

The official weighs for the HBO televised card:

Robert Guerrero 146.4 vs. Andre Berto 146.8
Keith Thurman 151.25 vs. Carlos Quintana 152
Randy Caballero 119.2 vs. Rigoberto Casillas 118.8

Guerrero can become a star with a win over Berto in this fight. He could pick up a big money fight and then get the backing of the considerable Mexican population in the U.S. It would make for an interesting fight if Guerrero could get past Berto and then get Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Manny Pacquiao in the ring somehow. The pay per view numbers would likely be very good. For that to happen Guerrero is going to have to find a way to get past Berto.

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Malignaggi turns 32 today; anxious to see if Hatton beats Senchenko

By Jeff Sorby: WBA World welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (32-4, 7 KO’s) turns 32-years-old today, and he’s really interested to see what the outcome will be for this Saturday’s fight between Ricky Hatton and Vyacheslav Senchenko in Manchester, England.

Malignaggi has already given Hatton the green lightweight for a world title shot provided that Hatton beats Senchenko and the World Boxing Association responds by giving Hatton a top 15 ranking. That pretty much goes without saying because Senchenko already has a very generous #7 ranking by the WBA, and they’ll no doubt push Hatton up to somewhere in the top 15 if he beats Senchenko tomorrow night.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hatton get a top 10 ranking by the WBA if he wins tomorrow night. The sanctioning fees would be good with Hatton as the WBA champion if he were interested in holding onto the strap if he gets past Malignaggi.

Just to show you how eager Malignaggi is to get the Hatton fight, he’s already in England right now and attended the Hatton-Senchenko final press conference this week when Senchenko failed to show up. Malignaggi will obviously be at the fight, and likely hoping Hatton looks sensational in winning. Malignaggi has no interest in fighting Senchenko again, because he already gave him a bad thrashing last April in stopping him in the 9th round in Ukraine.

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A win for Guerrero over Berto makes him an appealing option for Mayweather or Pacquiao

By Steve Mabbotts: WBC interim welterweight champion Robert Guerrero (30-1-1, 18 KO’s) has been talking for a long time about wanting to fight the likes of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. Now all Guerrero has to do to make himself an appealing option for those fighters is to beat Andre Berto (28-1, 22 KO’s) tomorrow night at the Citizens Business Bank Arena, in Ontario, California, USA.

That’s easier said than done, because Berto is a 2-1 favorite to win this fight, and Guerrero didn’t show the kind of power or speed in his last fight against Selcuk Aydin that would enable him to beat Berto.

Berto is beatable, and saw how he’s vulnerable against an opponent that puts a lot of pressure on him and throws a ton punches in Berto’s loss to Victor Ortiz last year. However, Guerrero will have to stand directly in front of Berto to accomplish that task he’s going to have to take a lot of hard shots in the process. Ortiz was able to get his way because he had power and speed pretty equal to Berto’s.

Guerrero doesn’t have that kind of speed and power going for him. Guerrero is more like a pumped up lightweight that left his power hind him at 135. Even at that weight, Guerrero wasn’t a big puncher, and he mainly got his victories by throwing a lot of shots. He’s going to have to do that with Berto on Saturday, and hope that the judges are more impressed with his higher punch volume compared to the harder, faster and more flashier shots that Berto is answering him back with.

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Pacquiao vs. Marquez 4: Will the crowd turn against Manny if he gets another controversial win?

By Rob Smith: If remember watching the last fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez last year in November at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, you’ll note that the Vegas crowd, which had been heavily in Pacquiao’s favorite all fight long, suddenly turned against him when the judges’ results were announced after the fight giving him the ring.

The crowd was unhappy with the decision and felt that Marquez should have won. There was a lot of booing, and it made it hard to hear Pacquiao speak when he was being interviewed after the fight. The question is will the crowd erupt into even louder booing if Pacquiao wins another controversial decision when he meets up with Marquez on December 8th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas?

Pacquiao has had incredible luck to be able to go though the three fights with Marquez without a loss because many boxing fans believe that Pacquiao deserved to win none of the fight, including the first one. While there is considerable controversy where there isn’t controversy is in looking at who won the majority of the rounds in their three fights. In watching all three fights back to back it’s irrefutable that Marquez won the vast majority of the rounds, or at least he should have. He controlled the action, landed the cleaner shots, and had the superior ring generalship. But still Pacquiao was given two wins and a draw in those three fights.

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Adrien Broner fans want to see him fight Rios or Garcia next, not Burns

By Ed Patrick: WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (25-0, 21 KO’s) may wind up fighting a unification bout against WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) next, but that’s not the guy that boxing fans want to see Broner fight. Burns is down in the pecking order in terms of who boxing fans want to see Broner fight, although they do have some interest in seeing that fight. In a poll conducted by RingTV, fans want Broner to fight Brandon Rios or Danny Garcia next followed by Burns.

Here’s the results of the poll thus far:

Brandon Rios 28.4%
Danny Garcia 24.2%
Ricky Burns 13.3%
Lucas Mattysse 11.9%
Juan Manuel Marquez 11.1%
Amir Khan 9.3%
Miguel Vazquez 1.8%

No doubt the boxing fans who want to see Broner fight Burns are largely from the UK, because the casual fans in the U.S have little idea of who Burns is. That’s not likely going to keep Broner’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions from making a Broner vs. Burns fight if possible, but it should. If boxing fans as a whole don’t have a clue who Burns is then Golden Boy shouldn’t waste one of Broner’s valuable fights by putting him in with a little known fighter.

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Haye to Hatton: Don’t listen to the haters

By Michael Collins: Former two division world champion David Haye gave a bit of encouragement to Ricky Hatton for his fight on Saturday night against Vyacheslav Senchenko, telling him not to listen to the criticism from fans and the media about his comeback fight.

Haye said on his site at hayemaker.com “Wishing you good luck tomorrow. Don’t listen to the haters. Just go out and do your thing. I know you wouldn’t be coming back if it wasn’t for a reason. I think you have a little something left. You have a little something up your sleeve. I wouldn’t be surprised to see. Go out and do your thing. Stay healthy.”

I never really saw Hatton’s problems in the past stemming from confidence or lack thereof. That to me seemed to be the last of Hatton’s problems. I think Hatton’s problems were more of a case of his lack of defense, his wild fighting style, and his inability to take hard head shots. It was a combination of things that was ultimately Hatton’s undoing when he got to the upper levels of the welterweight division. It wasn’t just one thing.

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