Welterweight Ruslan Provodnikov (22-2, 15 KO’s) has agreed to fight WBO interim light welterweight champion Mike Alvarado (34-1, 23 KO’s) on October 19th in a fight that could take place in Alvarado’s home city of Denver, Colorado. HBO would be televising the fight.
Now they’re waiting on Top Rank promoter Bob Arum to get his fighter Alvarado to agree to the deal. It’s not likely that Alvarado will turn it down, because he doesn’t have a ton of options right now in terms of fights.
#8 IBF Carson Jones (35-9-3, 25 KO’s) must have pulled out some of his old Rocky tapes to get one Ivan Drago’s lines to use on #1 IBF, welterweight contender Kell Brook (29-0, 19 KO’s) at their final press conference to hype their rematch on Saturday night at the Craven Park Stadium, Yorkshire, UK.
The World Boxing Council has given permission for WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (21-1, 18 KO’s) to make a voluntary defense against former IBF light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud (24-1, 19 KO’s), according to Steve Kim.
This means that that the 35-year-old Stevenson can bypass his mandatory title defense against challenger Tony Bellew. I’m sure Bellew won’t like this news because he had been hoping that he’d be next in line to face Stevenson after he beat Isaac Chilemba recently to become his mandatory.
WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is getting ready to start his sparring for the most important fight of his 8-year pro career against Floyd Mayweather Jr. on 9/14 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Bob Arum is looking to match Nonito Donaire (31-2, 20 KO’s) against Vic Darchinyan (39-5-1, 28 KO’s) in a fight that’ll take place in November, according to Dan Rafael. Why Arum is interested in making this match after all these years is anyone’s guess.
It’s likely that he sees Darchinyan as one of the few recognizable names that he can put with Donaire. It’s also a fight that is a winnable one for Donaire, and he clearly needs a victory after getting soundly beaten by WBA super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux last April.
Tony Bellew (20-1-1, 12 KO’s) may have to wait for his title shot against WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (21-1, 18 KO’s) for a title while longer because Stevenson is looking to slip in an optional title defense before the Bellew fight against former IBF light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud (24-1, 19 KO’s).
(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) “I know Saul, and I think that he has a better chance in the first half of the fight, than in the second. If there will be a direct exchange of punches, than there is no doubt that he will win. But I am sure that Floyd will not do that, he doesn’t need to do that, thus there will be no explosive war, as some are expecting. I think that the fight will be boring. Still we are all hoping for a big show,” stated Gennady Golovkin in a recent interview with Gorodokboxing.
I believe that most would agree with Gennady, and the fact of the matter is, while there is an entire army of fans out there thinking that Alvarez will be able to bully Mayweather Jr., he simply won’t be able to get close enough to do the damage.
Apparently things didn’t go too smooth between Alexander Povetkin and his former manager Vlad Hrunov. That’s right, as soon as his long awaited fight against Wladimir Klitschko was made official; Povetkin fired his long time manager Vlad Hrunov.