Porter looking to stop Brook and leave no doubts

08/14/201408/14/2014 Bill Phanco

IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-0-1, 15 KOs) doesn’t plan on letting challenger #1 IBF Kell Brook (32-0, 22 KOs) get any kind of confidence in their fight this Saturday night at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

Porter wants to get to Brook and hammer him into the canvas within the first 4 rounds, and he believes he’s got a good chance of carrying that off due to Brook’s stiff, straight up and down fighting stance. Porter sees Brook as someone he can hit early often with his best shots, because he doesn’t have the kind of pro style that would make him a difficult opponent to put hands on.

“I am going into the fight looking for that knockout. I told myself that going four rounds or less would be a beautiful night for me,” Porter said.

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Groves: I think Brook can beat Porter

08/13/2014 Bill Phanco

Few people are giving Kell Brook (32-0, 22 KOs) much of a chance of beating undefeated IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-0-1, 15 KOs) in their fight on Saturday at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

George Groves, a fellow Brit, believes that Brook has it in him to pull off the upset and bring Porter’s IBF strap back to the UK. Groves sparred with Porter a decade ago when both fighters were teenagers and he sees him as essentially the same fighter now as he was back then.

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Shannon Briggs doing a great job of creating interest in Wladimir Klitschko fight

08/05/201408/04/2014 Bill Phanco

Thus far, IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko has missed out on the mega-fights that we saw from former champions like Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis. But that could change with the hype that 42-year-old Shannon Briggs is singlehandedly creating by following Wladimir Klitschko around the globe and getting in his face at every opportunity to force him to fight him.

Briggs has been ignored by Klitschko so far, but Briggs doesn’t care about that. He plans on continuing his one-man campaign to get the fight with the Ukrainian fighter. While it may not be working for Briggs right now, he’s steadily building interest in fight between him and Wladimir Klitschko in Germany.

The fans over in Germany are being bombarded constant news about Briggs’ confrontations with Klitschko. At this point a fight between Briggs and Wladimir Klitschko would likely be the biggest match of his career. That’s unfortunately more of an indication of the lack of interesting opponents that Wladimir has had than an endorsement of Briggs. Klitschko has faced largely unknown fighters or guys that were played out by the time he did face them.

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Zlaticanin defeats Ricky Burns

06/28/201406/27/2014 Bill Phanco

We may have seen the end of Ricky Burns’ career tonight with him losing a 12 round split decision to visiting fighter Dejan Zlaticanin (19-0, 13 KO’s) at the Braehead Arena, in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. The judges scored the fight 115-113, 115-113 for Zlaticanin, and 115-113 for Burns.

Zlaticanin shocked the Scottish crowd in the opening round when he connected with a beautiful left hook that smashed into Burns’ jaw, sending him down on the canvas. Burns was hurt but somehow he was able to make it back to his feet and make it out of the round. Zlaticanin pasted him with two additional big left hooks to the head similar to the first one before the round ended. Burns was able to take them because he was bracing for the shots.

After the 1st round, the fight settled into a pattern where Zlaticanin stalked Burns around the ring, tagging him with big left hooks to the head and smashing him with powerful body shots.

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Burns faces Zlaticanin tonight in Glasgow

06/28/201406/26/2014 Bill Phanco

Former two weight world champ Ricky Burns (36-3-1, 11 KO’s) will be looking to convince his many doubters that he’s not an over-the-hill fighter when he faces the much smaller 5’6” Dejan Zlaticanin (18-0, 13 KO’s) tonight in a fight for the vacant WBC International lightweight title at the Braehead Arena, in Glasgow, Scotland.

At best, Burns could get a title shot against WBC lightweight champion Omar Figueroa if he wins tonight. At worse, Burns could face someone like #2 WBC Jorge Linares in a WBC eliminator with a win over Zlaticanin.

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Gamboa not worried about Crawford’s height advantage

06/25/2014 Bill Phanco

The 5’5 ½” Yuriokis Gamboa (23-0, 16 KO’s) will be giving up nearly 3 inches in height and 5 inches in reach this Saturday night in his fight against 5’8” WBO lightweight champion Terence Crawford (23-0, 16 KO’s) at the CenturyLink Center, in Omaha, Nebraska, USA.

This fight is basically a featherweight vs. a light welterweight, because Gamboa’s best weight class was in the 126 pound division after he turned pro in 2008. Crawford has always been a big lightweight, and more of a light welterweight in size. In fact, Crawford said that he plans on moving up to the light welterweight division [140] after this fight.

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Pulev wants drug testing down for Wladimir fight

09/15/201606/24/2014 Bill Phanco

Unbeaten challenger Kubrat Pulev (20-0, 11 KO’s) reportedly wants testing done in the run up to his September 6th title challenge against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (62-3, 52 KO’s) at the O2 World Arena, in Hamburg, Germany. Pulev, 33, doesn’t say why he wants the testing done, because there already is testing done for the fight. Having extra testing done might seem like overkill and a waste of money.

Pulev said, “I’m checked for doping at least six times a year during training. Should always be available and communicate where I was staying and where I am at any time. Why not apply to Wladimir Klitschko? Thus it would be fair.”

Pulev, as the challenger, is hardly in the position to get his way in terms of extra drug testing. He can ask for it, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

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Dawson faces Blades tonight

06/22/201406/21/2014 Bill Phanco

Chad Dawson (31-3, 17 KO’s) is hoping a win tonight against George Blades (23-5, 16 KO’s) will help reignite his stalled career. Dawson and Blades will be squaring off for a 10 round fight at the StubHub Center, in Carson, California, USA.

Dawson hasn’t fought in a year, so his handlers didn’t want to match him too tough given the time off. But once this fight is out of the way, Dawson needs to be pushed up fairly rapidly if he wants to make something happen in the light heavyweight division.

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Butler defeats Hall; Eubank Jr. destroys Horvath

06/08/201406/07/2014 Bill Phanco

In a sight upset, undefeated #11 IBF Paul Butler (16-0, 8 KO’s) defeated IBF bantamweight champion Stuart Hall (16-3-2, 7 KO’s) by a 12 round split decision on Saturday night Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom. Many of the rounds were very difficult to score due to Hall landing the harder shots, but Butler connecting with more of his lighter punches.

The judges scored it 115-113, 117-111 for Butler, and 115-113 for Hall. Butler was very impressive with the beautiful combinations, the speed and the angles he was throwing his punches from. If had a little more power on his shots, it would have been a cut and dried case of him being the better fighter, but he didn’t have anywhere near the same kind of power that Hall did on his punches.

After the fight Butler said he would give Hall a rematch in order to clear up the controversy about the decision. Whether Hall gets a rematch or not remains to be seen.

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Richard Schaefer leaves Golden Boy Promotions

06/02/2014 Bill Phanco

Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, has resigned from the company as of today. This was no surprise as Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya had recently bumped heads over the issue of mending the fence with Top Rank. De La Hoya was in favor of patching things up with Bob Arum and Top Rank, whereas Schaefer was against it.

Schaefer had been with Golden Boy Promotions for 12 years and was a huge part of the company’s success. De La Hoya had the name, but Schaefer did a lot of the hard work in putting cards together and signing high quality fighters.

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