Donaire vs. Arce on Saturday at the Toyota Center, in Houston, Texas

YouTube video
By Bill Phanco: WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (30-1, 19 KO’s) faces Jorge Arce (61-6-2, 46 KO’s) in a fight on Saturday night on December 15th at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. The fight will be televised by HBO, and it’s bout that a lot of Donaire’s Filipino fans and Arce’s Mexican fans are really interested in seeing. Arce’s fans think he has a real chance of winning this fight, but neutral boxing fans aren’t giving Arce much of any chance at all.

They see him as a small fighter whose best weight was light flyweight now fighting well above his best weight in going after better paydays at super bantamweight. Arce is kind of like Vic Darchinyan in that respect. Both Darchinyan and Arce were dominant at flyweight but now aren’t the same fighters after moving up to super bantamweight.

Donaire has got the height, reach, youth, and speed and power advantage over Arce. The only thing that Arce has going for him is experience and heart. Can that get him past a fighter as good as Donaire on Saturday? I’d say probably not. Theirs is a chance but it’s probably very slight.

Hatton stunned at seeing Pacquiao obliterated by Marquez

By Steve Mabbott: The one fighter that may have been the most shocked at seeing Manny Pacquiao taken completely apart by Juan Manuel Marquez, besides Pacquiao himself, was Ricky Hatton. Pacquiao has destroyed Hatton in 2 rounds in 2009, and dominated him throughout the short fight. But Hatton didn’t expect Marquez to knock Pacquiao out cold in the 6th round last Saturday night with his hard right hand to the head.

Khan: I’m ready for Carlos Molina; I’m a better fighter now

YouTube video
By Michael Collins: Former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (26-3, 18 KO’s) thinks he’s improved since his 4th round knockout loss to WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia last July. Khan faces Carlos Molina (17-0, 7 KO’s) this Saturday night in a make for break fight for Khan at the Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California. Khan can’t lose this fight, and he probably won’t because Molina has been picked out special by his promoters so that he doesn’t have another slip up like he’d had in his last two fights against Garcia and Lamont Peterson.

Khan has a new trainer Virgil Hunter and he believes that he’s really improving under his guidance.

Khan said to Sky Sports News “I’m a better fighter [now] by far because I would not fight Garcia the way I did. I’ve changed my fighting style a lot and it proves I’m doing something right.”

It’s a normal response for fighters or people in general to look back at mistakes and want to do it different the next time around. However, that still doesn’t mean that Khan would get past a Garcia in a rematch because Garcia would make adjustments to Khan fighting in a more conservative manner by taking the fight to him with pressure and forcing him to fight for his life. That’s the problem.

Marquez showed his superiority over Pacquiao with knockout win

By Rob Smith: Dan Rafael of ESPN said before last Saturday’s fight between Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao that the winner of that fight would be considered the series winner of the four-fight series between the two fighters. That may sound kind of strange but Rafael said that the boxing public already perceive Marquez as having given Pacquiao all he could handle in the first three fights, so all it took was for Marquez to beat Pacquiao in the 4th fight to claim the title as the dominate fighter of the series and I agree with Rafael.

Pacquiao says he got careless against Marquez: Does this make sense?

YouTube video
By Rob Smith: It was kind of strange to hear Manny Pacquiao saying he got careless in getting stopped in the 6th round by Juan Manuel Marquez last Saturday because Pacquiao’s entire fighting style, especially in this fight, has been one of fighting out of control. The difference here was that Marquez had the power to take advantage of Pacquiao’s aggressive style unlike in the three previous fights. Marquez didn’t have quite enough power to put Pacquiao down for the count despite hitting him often in their first three bouts of their series.

However, Marquez put on muscle for this fight with his strength and conditioning Coach Angel Hernandez assisting him. The muscle Marquez put on wasn’t the useless muscle that some fighters put on that slows them down without giving them any additional power. In this case, Marquez really was hitting with more power. We saw that early when he knocked Pacquiao down with a right hand in the 3rd round. You could tell how much stronger Marquez was from that punch alone because the shot made a loud thudding impact and Marquez wasn’t punching like that in previous fights.

Pacquiao’s career not over with loss to Marquez

By Brad Cronick: Manny Pacquiao’s career isn’t over just because he was stopped in the 6th round by Juan Manuel Marquez last Saturday night. This is something that happens in boxing especially when fighters are going all out looking to score a knockout like Pacquiao was in the 6th round when he got knocked flat by a right hand from Marquez.

Pacquiao vs. Marquez IV – A Fistful of Zeal

Pacquiao vs. Marquez IV – A Fistful of ZealBy Marc Livitz: Boxing received a cattle prod to the backside on Saturday evening and amazingly, it took but one bundle of dynamite from a certain “Dinamita”.

It was the sweet science’s rendition of a Saturday night special which likely sent one nation into hysterical levels of celebration and another into a deep sadness. To further illustrate the significance of Manny Pacquiao’s knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez: the news of the Filipino Congressman’s defeat as posted on the website of the Manila Times took brief (and hopefully very brief) precedence over the destruction unleashed upon the Philippines by Typhoon Bopha, which has left the country in a state of utter devastation.

Simply because the nature of Marquez’s savage gift of unconsciousness passed on to Pacquiao was delivered in the style that it was, the dying seconds of round six from the MGM Grand will do more than just remain etched in the hearts and minds of boxing fans worldwide. This is a flash bulb memory moment to be sure.