Khan deserves the Mayweather fight, says Haye

05/10/2014 Bill Phanco

David Haye feels that Amir Khan’s victories over Luis Collazo, Julio Diaz and Carlos Molina are the right stuff to get him a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in late 2014 or in 2015. Haye believes that the way that Khan beat those three fighters was more than enough to show that he deserves to be in the same ring with Mayweather. Haye also has Khan rated as the number 2 welterweight in the division behind only Mayweather, and he sees Khan as being capable of defeating Manny Pacquiao right now.

“I think Khan deserves a fight against Mayweather. Maidana gave Mayweather a hell of a fight,” Haye said. “Khan smashed him [Maidana] before, put him down and dominated him. If anybody can beat Mayweather, its Amir Khan…He put him [Collazo] down multiple times, and he dominated him. That was a performance for me to say he is the best fighter on the planet behind Mayweather.”

Klitschko: Leapai is an underdog but he can bite

07/31/201404/13/2014 Bill Phanco

IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (61-3, 51 KO’s) is taking on one of his smaller opponents in 6’0” Alex Leapai (30-4-3, 24 KO’s) on April 26th of this month at the Koenig Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. The 6’6” Wladimir doesn’t care that Leapai is small or that he was recently knocked out by journeyman Kevin Johnson. Wladimir is still taking him very serious as an opponent.

This fight might not look great on paper due to Leapai’s less than impressive resume, but the World Boxing Organization chose to rank him at No.1 after his win over Denis Boytsov, leaving Wladimir no other choice but to fight Leapai or end up having his WBO title stripped from him.

Clottey defeats Mundine in huge upset

04/09/2014 Bill Phanco

In a huge upset, #14 WBA Joshua Clottey (38-4, 22 KO’s) defeated #3 WBA Anthony Mundine (46-6, 27 KO’s) by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision on Wednesday night at the Entertainment Centre, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.

Clottey was supposed to be a safe fight for the 38-year-old Mundine to win in order to stay in line for a title shot against WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara. However, Clottey didn’t go along with the program, as he knocked the slow moving Mundine down 5 times in the fight with his still fast hooks to the head. Mundine was down once in rounds 3, twice in the 6th, once in the 8th, and a final time in the 10th. The final judger scores were 116-108, 115-109, and 117-108.

Hatton: Khan deserves the Mayweather fight if he beats Collazo

04/03/201404/03/2014 Bill Phanco

While some boxing fans feel that a win over 32-year-old Luis Collazo (35-5, 18 KO’s) isn’t a big enough win to catapult Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) into a big fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Ricky Hatton thinks Khan should be given the Mayweather fight off of a victory over Collazo. Hatton admires Collazo’s ability after having beaten him by a 12 round decision 7 years ago when Collazo was much younger and in possession of the WBA 147lb title.

Collazo has been hanging around the sport ever since, but he stopped fighting well known opposition after a loss to Andre Berto in 2009. Collazo went through a 5 year period where he fought largely C level opposition until his win over Victor Ortiz earlier this year. Ortiz is arguably a low B level fighter, if not a C level guy at this point in his career.

Khan might still be undefeated if he were trained by Oliver Harrison, says Charles

07/31/201403/31/2014 Bill Phanco

Don Charles, the trainer for heavyweight Dereck Chisora, thinks the three times beaten Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) would still be an unbeaten fighter if he had stuck it out with his original trainer Oliver Harrison. Khan left Harrison early on with his pro career and was trained by a Cuban trainer Jorge Rubio for his loss to Breidis Prescott in 2008.

Khan then moved on after that to trainer Los Angeles, California based trainer Freddie Roach, and after a run of good luck with him, Khan was then beaten in back to back fights by Lamont Peterson and Danny Garcia. Khan then replaced Roach with the Oakland, California based Virgil Hunter, and Khan has since gone 2-0, albeit against weaker opposition than what he had faced with Roach.

Kovalev stops Agnew; Dulorme decisions Mayfield

03/30/201403/29/2014 Bill Phanco

WBO light heavyweight Sergey Kovalev (24-0-1, 22 KO’s) gave Cedric Agnew (26-1, 13 KO’s) a methodical beating en route to halting him in the 7th round tonight with a left jab to the body at The Ballroom, Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA. Referee Samuel Viruet stopped the fight at 0:57 of the 7th.

Agnew did a good job of covering up, and landing some nice shots in the fight. However, the punishing affects of Kovalev’s shots sapped all the energy out of Agnew by the 6th round, and he was able to put him on the canvas early in the round.

Bradley sticking with the belief that Pacquiao doesn’t have it anymore

03/29/201403/29/2014 Bill Phanco

WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s) seems to be trying to whip his opponent Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KO’s) into a mad frenzy for their fight next month on April 12th by saying to anyone willing to listen that Pacquiao no longer has the same fire that he once did years ago.

Bradley has told this even to Pacquiao’s face during their Face Off with Max Kellerman on HBO, and he appears to be intent on making Pacquiao so angry that he’ll come out quickly on April 12th trying to score a knockout. Bradley must feel like he’ll be able to keep from getting hit with Pacquiao’s shots so that he can get a decision win over him. There’s no other reason why Bradley would want to be pointing out the flaws in Pacquiao’s game.

Deontay: I’ll break Arreola’s nose; Stiverne has no chance against me

03/27/201403/26/2014 Bill Phanco

Unbeaten heavyweight contender Deontay Wilder (31-0, 31 KO’s) says he can’t wait to get a shot at whipping the winner of the May 10th fight between Chris Arreola (36-3, 31 KO’s) and Bermane Stiverne (23-1-1, 20 KO’s) for the WBC heavyweight title. Stiverne and Arreola will be fighting for the vacant WBC title in their bout, but then the winner has to face Deontay next until they choose to go for a unification bout against Wladimir Klitschko, the IBF/WBA/WBO/WBA heavyweight champion.

Deontay, 6’7”, wants to break Arreola’s nose in the same way that Stiverene did last April when he beat Arreola by a 12 round unanimous decision after shattering his nose in the 3rd round with a hard right hand. Deontay feels that he’ll do the same thing if he gets a shot at facing Arreola for the WBC title. Deontay likes that match-up a lot.