Arum close to finalizing Pacquiao-Marquez 4, Roach not happy

Arum close to finalizing Pacquiao-Marquez 4, Roach not happy By Michael Collins: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is close to putting the finishing touches on a fourth fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez. The bout will take place on December 8th in Las Vegas for a still yet to be determined pay per view asking price. Count on it being in the $49.99 range.

Arum said to Dan Rafael at ESPN “We’re having a meeting about Manny’s next fight and to get it finalized. My goal is to finalize the Marquez fight, but I have to meet with [Michael Koncz].”

This might good news or bad news depending on whether you’re one of the fans that want to see Pacquiao fight Marquez for a fourth time. Hardcore boxing fans are getting a little tired of seeing Pacquiao fight Marquez again and again, but casual boxing fans seem to really like the fight judging by the 1.2 million fans that purchased tickets for the Pacquiao-Marquez III fight last November. With boxing fans continuing to show interest in seeing Pacquiao fight Marquez, Arum is likely going to keep this rivalry going until it no longer brings gold for Pacquiao, him and Marquez.

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Pacquiao’s next opponent could be picked this week for December 8th fight

By Rob Smith: Manny Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz is reporting that negotiations are complete with the potential opponent for Pacquiao’s next fight on December 8th in Las Vegas, and the only thing that is needed now is Top Rank promoter Bob Arum’s final decision. It’s going to be either Tim Bradley or Juan Manuel Marquez, two of Pacquiao’s past opponents. The opponent could be announced on Thursday, September 13th. That’s the word that has been floating around.

Koncz told RingTV “We’re done negotiation. We’ll present everything to Bob, and he will decide what he wants to do.”

Interesting. I thought Pacquiao was supposed to be the one that is picking out his next opponent, but Koncz sure is making it seem as if Arum is the ultimate decider in the choosing.

It’s not all that appealing Pacquiao facing the retreads that Arum has offered up to him. Boxing fans want to see Pacquiao fight someone new instead of seeing the same old Top Rank fighters brought in repeatedly for fights against him. At this point it would be more interesting to see Pacquiao fight someone completely new, even if it meant that the fight would likely be a mismatch. Seeing Pacquiao fight Bradley again would be like watching paint dry.

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Hollywood Fight Night Trainer Spotlight: Eric Brown

The Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood, California is known more as the home of Manny Pacquiao and Freddie Roach’s stable of World Chamion fighters. What many people don’t know from how this gym is portrayed on HBO’s 24/7 or any other show on which it is featured, is that there are other world class trainers there as well. Chris Strait, of www.convictedartist.com sat down with Eric Brown, to discuss the journey he has taken to from the Motor City to becoming a top-notch boxing trainer at the World’s most famous boxing gym.

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How would Sergio Martinez or Chavez Jr. fair against Andre Ward?

By Robert Jackson: Now that we’ve gotten Ward/Dawson out of the way, what’s up next is the Martinez/Chavez Jr fight! The winner of this fight could rightfully be in line for a BIG money PPV match-up against the undefeated Andre Ward. An undefeated Chavez Jr facing and undefeated Ward would be the better match-up unless…Martinez puts on a virtuoso performance while beating Chavez Jr.

Looking at the case for either man facing Ward next you first have Chavez Jr who at 26 is outgrowing the 160lb division, while the 37 year old Sergio ‘Maravilla’ Martinez is counting down to the twilight of his career. The BIGGER interest and promotion would be for Chavez Jr to face Ward, he has a bigger name and following. He fights in the rough-tough Mexican style even though Freddie Roach has added a few wrinkles to his style, and he would bring the fight to Ward.

Martinez a technician just like Ward starts slowly making adjustments along the way to even out a fight and makes more adjustments as a fight moves forwards to pull ahead. Late in recent fights Maravilla has gotten KO’s, after slow starts. He’ll do the same against Chavez Jr in their upcoming fight. Doing this against Ward could result in a chess match with 2 thoughtful fighters trying to out-think each other, a possibly low punch output, less action affair. Fans may anticipate a snoozer of a fight which would make this fight the least desirable one.

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Canelo vs. Lopez: “A for Effort”

(Photo credit: Ester Lin/Showtime) By Marc Livitz: Hardcore fans and the so-called purists alike may feel themselves a bit torn this upcoming Saturday evening. Contrary to popular American belief is the fact that Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. There’s always been a reason why the weekend which most closely precedes or follows the sixteenth of September is a hot date for the sweet science and the old lady will be wearing her finest pearls this weekend.

Sadly and to the disappointment of many of her loyal and regular suitors, she’s in a bit of a huff over the idea that a few knuckleheads have intentionally thrown some mud upon her nicest dress. The cleaning bill once again has inexplicably been chucked in the direction of the fans.

One of the biggest sins of the sponsor and spawn is to put the paying customer in a corner. The old goat has been in a face-off with the younger brood for a long while, as we all know. Of course, there are and continue to be stumbling blocks to the fights which we all want to enjoy. The one placed before us was however arguably avoidable. It’s still in the nature of people, particularly men, to go ahead as planned without clear regard to the consequences of their actions.

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Exclusive Interview with super middleweight contender Edwin Rodriguez

“I want to be able to make a statement my next fight to get a guy like Kelly Pavlik, or Arthur Abraham, or one of those big names” – Edwin Rodriguez

Exclusive Interview by Geoffrey Ciani – I was recently afforded the opportunity to speak with undefeated super middleweight contender Edwin Rodriguez (21-0, 14 KOs) who is preparing to square off against fellow undefeated fighter Jason Escalara (13-0-1, 12 KOs) on September 29 in a bout that will be televised by HBO. Rodriguez spoke about his upcoming fight and shared his views on his opponent. He also provided opinions on a variety of topics, including the chemistry he shares with head trainer Ronnie Shields, Andre Ward’s impressive victory against Chad Dawson last weekend, his idea on what it would take to beat someone of Ward’s caliber, and more! Here is a complete transcript from that interview.

Audio:

GEOFFREY CIANI: Hello boxing fans. This is Geoffrey Ciani from East Side Boxing and I’m here with super middleweight contender Edwin Rodriguez. How’s everything going, Edwin?

EDWIN RODRIGUEZ: Everything is great. I’m here in Houston, Texas with Ronnie Shields having a great training camp.

CIANI: Great! Now you have a big fight coming up September 29 against Jason Escalara. You said the training camp is going great. So you’re confident in your preparations for this fight thus far?

RODRIGUEZ: Yes sir, extremely confident. Me and Ronnie had a really good training camp where we were able to sit down and learn a few things, and just get a really good game plan for this next fight. We’ve had really good sparring partners. I’ve been working with Cornelius White, who’s top ten in the world at 175, and Don Mouton and me did ten rounds on Tuesday, and I feel great.

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Ahmed Kaddour Interview

After his action-packed Nordic Fight Night debut in Herning on June 2, Ahmed Kaddour (25-2-1, 10 KOs) will make another appearance on Team Sauerland´s show on September 22, taking on Max Maxwell (15-11-3, 3 KOs) at Frederikshavn´s Arena Nord. Having learned all about German discipline, timeliness and strictness at Team Sauerland´s training base in Berlin, Kaddour has predicted to stop his opponent in less than five rounds.

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Angel Garcia: Erik Morales will be down on his knees by the 5th against Danny Garcia

By Rob Smith: Angel Garcia, the father and trainer for WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (24-0, 15 KO’s), believes that Danny can take out the aging 36-year-old former four division world champion Erik Morales (52-8, 36 KO’s) when they fight on October 20th at the Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, New York.

Angel said to RingTV “Danny needs to go out there and to to the body and start hitting him hard. He needs to go downstairs early and then, by the 5th, Erik Morales should be down on his knees.”

I’m not sure that the 24-year-old Garcia has enough power or the offensive skills to stop Morales. It’s not that Morales is someone that is unstoppable because we’ve seen him get taken out by Manny Pacquiao on a couple of occasions in the past. However, Garcia doesn’t put his punches together the same way Pacquiao does, and he doesn’t really go after his opponents in a sustained enough manner to take them out.

The only time Garcia seems to go after an opponent is when he’s got one of them hurt, like he did in his last fight against Amir Khan last July. Garcia did an excellent job of finishing off Khan after knocking him down late in the 3rd round from a left hook to the neck. Khan made it easy for Garcia by trying to slug with him early in the 4th, resulting in Garcia chopping him down.

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Is Maravilla taking his fight against Chavez Jr. too seriously?

By Robert Jackson: Yesterday, I wrote a piece asking the question as to whether Julio Cesar Chavez Jr was just putting on an act for the cameras which showed him ‘slacking off’ while training for his September 15th fight against Sergio Martinez. HBO’s 24/7 docudrama featured Chavez Jr. deliberately missing scheduled training sessions, sleeping in, and not training at all in one case. In fact Chavez Jr’s body didn’t look as toned as it could be to engage in an upcoming professional fight.

To Chavez Jr’s credit his 7 day weigh-in had him weighing the same 167lbs as Sergio Martinez weighed in at. For a much bigger, heavier man that says that Chavez Jr IS preparing but playing mind games with us all.

All the while Chavez Jr was supposedly missing training sessions, Sergio Martinez was shown training like a machine with the intention as he put it to make Chavez Jr. “regret taking the fight”. Martinez was shown resting in a hyperbaric chamber to increase his blood-oxygen uptake. Maravilla has been shown executing different drills, conditioning, sparring and bag work to get him ready for battle. A lot of discipline and seriousness has been exercised on the Martinez side of things to be ready on fight night. Maybe a little too serious?

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Ricky Hatton’s comeback likely for November 24th

By Michael Collins: Ricky Hatton (45-2, 32 KO’s) is expected to be making his comeback on November 24th at the MEN Arena, according to the Manchester Evening News. There’s talk of Hatton having met with the British Boxing Board of Control to get licensed to fight. Hatton additionally has lot a lot of weight and this has further fueled speculation that the 33-year-old Hatton will soon be back in the ring. Hatton will be making an announcement this Friday about his plans for the November 24th fight.

His fighters Anthony Crolla, Martin Murray, Rendall Munroe and Scott Quigg will be on the November 24th card.

If Hatton does make a comeback on November 24th he’ll likely be matched against a less than dangerous opponent. It’s been three years since he last fought, and he was knocked out in only two rounds in his last fight against Manny Pacquiao. Hatton needs to take things slowly if he wants to find success with his comeback. His chin might not be the same, and we could see Hatton knockout out again if he faces someone too good for him.

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