Mikey Garcia – Juan Carlos Burgos Interview Transcript

Undefeated World Boxing Organization (WBO) junior lightweight champion and 2013 Fighter of the Year nominee MIKEY GARCIA (33-0, 28 KOs), of Oxnard, Calif., and two-time world title challenger and current No. 1 contender JUAN CARLOS BURGOS (30-1-2, 20 KOs), of Tijuana, México, hosted an international Media Conference Call from their respective training camps on Tuesday. Garcia and Burgos are in the final weeks of training before their world title fight collision at The Mecca of Boxing — Madison Square Garden in New York.

The Garcia – Burgos world junior lightweight title fight takes place on Saturday, January 25 and will be televised live on HBO Boxing After Dark®, beginning at 9:45 p.m. ET/PT. The telecast will open with a 10-round battle between undefeated heavyweight contenders Bryant Jennings and Artur Szpilka.

Bernard Hopkins turns 49 today

IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins (54-6-2, 32 KO’s) turns 49-years-old today and he faces what could be the toughest part of his career if he backs up his tough talk with action in 2014 and 2015. Hopkins will be facing WBA 175 lb. champion Beibut Shumenov in April or May in a unification match. From there, Hopkins says he wants to fight unification matches against WBO champion Sergey Kovalev and WBC champ Adonis Stevenson.

Whether Hopkins does so is the real question. He’s been talking a lot, and recently he mentioned that he saw Kovalev as an easy fight for him. If Hopkins chooses to use the network squabbles as a reason why he can’t fight Kovalev and Stevenson, it’ll look like he’s ducking those guys in the minds of many boxing fans.

Foreman Vs. Cooney – Foreman’s attempt to “make Tyson shiver!”

Mikey Garcia says he’s willing to fight Yuriorkis Gamboa

WBO super featherweight champion Mikey Garcia (33-0, 28 KO’s) says he’s willing to fight WBA interim lightweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa (23-0, 16 KO’s) in the near future. Garcia wants Gamboa’s promoter 50 Cent to contact his promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank to make the fight happen. HBO would definitely like to put that fight on their network, because they expressed interest in that fight in the past.

Instead of getting that fight, HBO will be televising Mikey vs. Juan Carlos Burgos (30-1-2, 20 KO’s) this month on January 25th at Madison Square Garden in New York. Burgos is coming off of two straight 12 round draws against recent Mikey victim Roman Martinez and Yakubu Amidu.

Darren Barker retires from boxing

Former IBF middleweight champion Darren Barker (26-2, 16 KO’s) has reportedly retired from boxing following his 2nd round stoppage loss to Felix Sturm last December in Stuttgart, Germany. The 31-year-old Barker suffered a hip injury in the 2nd round, which made impossible for him to fight effectively. With Barker unable to put the full weight on his injured hip, he ended up getting knocked to the canvas twice by two clubbing shots from Sturm before Barker’s corner threw in the towel to have the contest halted.

For Barker, this was his 2nd hip injury and a clear signal that it might be wise for him to hang up the gloves. Barker had a rematch clause in his contract to fight Sturm again, and he likely would have gotten a nice payday out of the fight. However, it’s possible that Barker might have had a tough time making it through a grueling training camp, and more importantly passing a physical to be allowed into the ring to face Sturm for a second time.

Adrien Broner shouldn’t have fought Maidana, says Jones Jr.

Roy Jones Jr. thinks it was a big mistake for former WBA welterweight champion Adrien Broner (27-1, 22 KO’s) to have been matched against a puncher like Marcos Maidana (35-3, 31 KO’s) last month in their fight on December 14th. Jones Jr. thinks that Broner’s tougher than expected fight against Paulie Malignaggi was a sign that he needed to fight a slightly stronger fighter for his next fight instead of being put in with arguably the hardest puncher in the 147 lb. division in Maidana.

Golden Boy Promotions set up the Broner-Maidana fight, and Jones Jr. thinks that was a mistake. He felt that Broner needed more time for him to slowly grow into becoming a welterweight instead of jumping up to that weight class and quickly being put in the ring with Maidana in a risky right.

Interview – Ivan Redkach: A 2014 Lightweight Contender

One of the best up and coming contenders of 2014 is undefeated Ukraine Lightweight, Ivan “The Terrible” Redkach (15-0, 13KOs, 1 NC) who has knockout 87 percent of his opponents and is ranked number 13 by the World Boxing Council.

Redkach is highly regarded by many boxing experts including ESPN`s Dan Rafael, Steve Kim of Maxboxing.com, Ring.TV’s Doug Fischer, among others, in large part due to his tremendous knockout power in both hands, going to the body really well and his all-out aggressive offensive style that overwhelms his opponents. The southpaw knockout sensation, looks to continue his destructive path up the lightweight divisional rankings in 2014 as he`s coming off two early knockouts in three fights last year with the other bout being a no-decision due to an accidental head-butt. He has stopped 12 opponents inside three rounds, six of which were in the first round.

Fighting Against All Odds? For Leapai vs. Klitschko, It Might Have a Literal Meaning

We have all heard that boxing is the kind of sport where anyone has a puncher’s chance to win at any point during the fight. While this happens to be true, the probability is utterly low, and most of the time, the odd-makers know exactly what they are talking about.

For Alex Leapai (30-4-3), it seems that beating Denis Boytsov (33-1-0) in November 2013, was a straight shot to an opportunity against Wladimir Klitschko (61-3-0). Maybe it was Boytsov, or maybe it is the lack of other, more formidable competition in the heavyweight division that provided Leapai with this phenomenal chance.