Deontay Wilder to get title shot if he beats Malik Scott on March 15th

07/31/201402/08/2014 Bill Phanco

After 6 years as a professional, #3 WBC Deontay Wilder (30-0, 30 KO’s) is on the cusp of fighting for a heavyweight world title if he can beat Malik Scott (36-1-1, 13 KO’s) on March 15th at the Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez, Bayamon, Puerto Rico. The Wilder-Scott fight will be a WBC eliminator bout, and the winner of that fight will be getting a title shot in 2014 against either Chris Arreola or Bermane Stiverne, depending which one of these guys emerge as the winner of their fight for the vacant WBC title in April or May.

“I’m totally capable of being a world champion, just like Emanuel Steward once said that I would,” Deontay said to RingTV. “It’s going to be most important that, come March 15, I display something that I never have before and that I show the world that Deontsy Wilder has really arrived now and that I’m really to be the world champion.”

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Selby stops Munroe; Buckland defeats Rees; Joshua destroys Darch

02/02/201402/01/2014 Bill Phanco

British featherweight champion Lee Selby (18-1, 7 KO’s) had an easy time defeating former World title challenger Rendall Munroe (27-4-1, 11 KO’s) by a 7th round stoppage on Saturday night to win the vacant European featherweight strap at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. The fight was one-sided, but the stoppage was somewhat controversial due to referee Ian John Lewis halting it while Munroe was still upright and not quite out of it.

The official time of the stoppage was 1:31 of the round. Munroe wasn’t going anywhere even if he had survived the round, because he couldn’t handle the speed, power and size of Selby. Munroe was a very good fighter at one time, but he didn’t look it tonight. He looked like a fighter past his prime facing someone much too good for him. Leading up to the stoppage, Selby hurt Munroe with a right hand that sent him backwards into the corner where he was taking shots until Lewis stopped the fight.

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Garcia decisions Burgos; Jennings defeats Szpilka

01/26/201401/25/2014 Bill Phanco

WBO super featherweight champion Mikey Garcia (34-0, 28 KO’s) failed to impress on Saturday night in defeating Juan Carlos Burgos (30-2-2, 20 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision at the Madison Square Garden Theater, in New York, New York, USA. The judges had the fight scored at 118-110, 118-110, 119-109. Burgos hurt Mikey in the 2nd round with a left, and if he had a little more power and time left in the round, he might have finished Mikey off.

Burgos failed to go after Mikey when he had him hurt, and in the 3rd round he ended up getting hurt himself after taking a hard shot.

Mikey looked really uncomfortable with the size, and power of Burgos. When Mikey would come after Burgos, he’d get hit with a left hook and that would cause Mikey to freeze and then back up, as if he were being reeled in on a fishing line. It was not impressive stuff to see Mikey unable to walk though Burgos’ shots.

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Schaefer: Victor Ortiz wants to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. again

01/22/2014 Bill Phanco

Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer is going to be trying to rebuild the career of his fighter former WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz (29-4-2, 22 KO’s) in 2014. Ortiz, 26, hasn’t fought since his loss to Josesito Lopez in June of 2012, and he’s lost his last two fights with one of them being at the hands of Floyd Mayweather Jr. That’s who Ortiz wants to fight again if possible, but it’s going to take a lot of hard work by him and Golden Boy for that rematch to take place.

“There’s a lot of 140lb and 147lb match-ups we’re working on for this year and Ortiz-Collazo falls within that talented weight class. ‏He wants to get back on the road and fight Floyd Mayweather again but he can’t look past Luis Collazo.”

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Mayweather-Khan PPV numbers likely to be underwhelming

01/20/2014 Bill Phanco

While Floyd Mayweather Jr. still hasn’t officially named his next opponent for his May 3rd fight date, it’s widely expected to be Britain’s Amir Khan who will be pitted against him. It’s no secret that Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer and Showtime’s President of Sports Stephen Espinoza see his fight as an intriguing on due to the the blazing fast hand speed of Mayweather and Khan.

It’s a win-win fight for Golden Boy because they promote Khan, and just by fighting Mayweather it’ll increase Khan’s value to their stable. However, this fight might not turn out so well for Mayweather due to what will likely be a poor pay-per-view numbers.

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Bute and Pascal battle it out tonight at Bell Centre in Montreal

09/15/201601/18/2014 Bill Phanco

There are a lot of questions that will be answered tonight in the Canadian battle between Lucian Bute (31-1, 24 KO’s) and Jean Pascal (28-2-1, 17 KO’s) at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. The first question is whether Bute will be able to stand up to Pascal’s power. He’s not a huge puncher, but he can definitely cause his opponents problems if they don’t have a strong chin.

Bute’s knockout loss to Carl Froch has to make you question whether he has the punch resistance needed to beat another quality fighter.

For most of his career, Bute has been able to get by largely on the match-making that’s been done for him. Bute never had to fight anyone really good until late in his career when he fought Froch. We found out in that fight that Bute’s chin isn’t good enough for him to beat an A level fighter. However, Bute’s offense is good that it might enable him to get past this test tonight, because for Pascal to get to Bute, he’s going to have to take some major risks. Pascal has a good chin, but it’s hard to say what’ll happen if he gets hit hard to the body by Bute.

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Bute and Pascal on target at weigh-in

01/18/201401/17/2014 Bill Phanco

Former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (31-1, 24 KO’s) and Jean Pascal (28-2-1, 17 KO’s) both successfully weighed in on Friday for their clash tomorrow night at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. Bute, who is coming of lackluster 12 round decision win over Denis Grachev over a year ago, weighed in at 173.6 lbs. For his part, the 31-year-old Pascal weighed in right at the limit at 175 lbs.

This was a fight that was really looked forward to for many years in Canada, but due to Pascal’s loss to Bernard Hopkins, and Bute’s defeat at the hands of Carl Froch, a lot of the excitement that would have been there for this fight has been lost. The fight is basically 3 years too late. Pascal has become a part-time fighter who rarely fights nowadays, and he hasn’t taken on a good opponent in 3 years since his loss to Bernard Hopkins. Bute was kind of exposed in the Froch fight in terms of his chin.

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Darren Barker retires from boxing

01/15/2014 Bill Phanco

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.

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Canelo-Angulo undercard looking kind of thin

01/13/2014 Bill Phanco

For Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s first pay-per-view head-lining fight against Alfredo Angulo (22-3, 18 KO’s) on March 8th, Golden Boy Promotions is in the process of stacking the undercard with generally smaller fighters that the casual boxing fans will have a hard time recognizing. This is probably not the wisest move for Golden Boy and Canelo do because the Canelo vs. Angulo fight is hardly a PPV quality fight, and Golden Boy could be making things worse by stacking the undercard with generally smaller guys.

What this card needs is the Adrien Broner vs. Marcos Maidana II rematch and/or Canelo facing Erislandy Lara instead of Angulo, a fighter who was just knocked out. Golden Boy and Canelo need to re-think the idea of making this fight card a PPV bout because it’s doubtful that fans are going to want to pay to see a mismatch in the main event and then 2 mismatches in the undercard.

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Pacquiao doubts Mayweather wants to fight him

08/01/201401/13/2014 Bill Phanco

Manny Pacquiao has reached the point where he now suspects that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is not serious about ever fighting him. Pacquiao notes that Mayweather Jr. has been asking him to agree to an ever increasing amount of things before he’ll agree to fight him. It was originally drug testing, but now Mayweather wants him to leave his promoter Bob Arum before he’ll think about fighting him.

The thing is there’s no guarantee that Mayweather will actually fight Pacquiao even if he does leave Arum. That would put Pacquiao in a situation where he could wind up leaving Arum for no reason if Mayweather decides he still doesn’t want to fight him.

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