Mayweather looks like he’ll be facing Khan next

08/02/201401/16/2014 Jeff Sorby

Floyd Mayweather Jr. will likely be disappointing boxing fans by announcing that his next fight on May 3rd will be Amir Khan within the week. ESPN’s Brian Campbell is saying that it appears that Khan will be the guy that Mayweather Jr. will be facing next instead of Marcos Maidana or Danny Garcia.

Campbell is well aware that this will be a controversial pick due to Khan’s defeats to Danny Garcia and Lamont Peterson, but that won’t matter. Mayweather will be choosing him any way.

“Unless Money May has a secret plan he has yet to be leaked in any fashion or any way, Khan, all signs point to him as the next opponent for him,” Campbell said to ESPN. “He’s somewhat of a controversial pick if it ends up being him because, although very talented, Khan is coming off of a pair of losses in recent memory and he’s bounced back with two comeback fights. But really he’s not shown that he’s in his top form…So it’s really Khan or nothing at this point.”

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Bernard Hopkins turns 49 today

01/15/2014 Jeff Sorby

IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins (54-6-2, 32 KO’s) turns 49-years-old today and he faces what could be the toughest part of his career if he backs up his tough talk with action in 2014 and 2015. Hopkins will be facing WBA 175 lb. champion Beibut Shumenov in April or May in a unification match. From there, Hopkins says he wants to fight unification matches against WBO champion Sergey Kovalev and WBC champ Adonis Stevenson.

Whether Hopkins does so is the real question. He’s been talking a lot, and recently he mentioned that he saw Kovalev as an easy fight for him. If Hopkins chooses to use the network squabbles as a reason why he can’t fight Kovalev and Stevenson, it’ll look like he’s ducking those guys in the minds of many boxing fans.

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Adrien Broner shouldn’t have fought Maidana, says Jones Jr.

08/01/201401/15/2014 Jeff Sorby

Roy Jones Jr. thinks it was a big mistake for former WBA welterweight champion Adrien Broner (27-1, 22 KO’s) to have been matched against a puncher like Marcos Maidana (35-3, 31 KO’s) last month in their fight on December 14th. Jones Jr. thinks that Broner’s tougher than expected fight against Paulie Malignaggi was a sign that he needed to fight a slightly stronger fighter for his next fight instead of being put in with arguably the hardest puncher in the 147 lb. division in Maidana.

Golden Boy Promotions set up the Broner-Maidana fight, and Jones Jr. thinks that was a mistake. He felt that Broner needed more time for him to slowly grow into becoming a welterweight instead of jumping up to that weight class and quickly being put in the ring with Maidana in a risky right.

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Hopkins sees Kovalev as easy fight for him

07/31/201401/13/2014 Jeff Sorby

IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (54-6-2, 32 KO’s) may never get a chance to fight WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (23-0-1, 21 KO’s) due to them fighting on different cable networks, but that’s not stopping Hopkins from giving his opinion about how he’d do against the Russian fighter if he ever did fight him. Hopkins, who turned 49 this Wednesday, thinks Kovalev would be an even easier fight for him than his fight with Kelly Pavlik.

Hopkins believes that Kovalev is a fighter with only one dimension, and be figures he’d soundly beat him if the two ever fought. The fact that they probably never will fight gives Hopkins the chance to talk as much as he’d like without having to actually prove himself against Kovalev in the ring.

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Stafford thinks Broner will beat Maidana in the rematch if he starts fast

07/31/201401/13/2014 Jeff Sorby

Mike Stafford, the trainer for former WBA welterweight champion Adrien Broner, thinks he can beat Marcos Maidana in the rematch if Broner comes out quickly fighting at the pace he was at in the last half of his loss to Maidana last month on December 14th in San Antonio, Texas. Broner lost the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision, but you can put most of the responsibility for Broner’s loss on him starting off too slowly in the first 6 rounds.

Broner fought like he was half asleep during the first part of the fight, as he threw few punches and he let Maidana have control over the action. It was like Broner gave the fight to Maidana, at least that part of the fight. When Broner did rally in the 2nd half, he so far behind that he needed a knockout to win, and that wasn’t going to happen.

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Angulo: I’m the first true 154 lb. fighter Canelo will have faced

07/31/201401/12/2014 Jeff Sorby

One of the knocks on former WBA/WBC light middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s) is that he’s been matched up with mostly welterweights or former welterweights by Golden Boy Promotions since he moved up to the 154 lb. division in 2010. In Canelo’s 11 fights at junior middleweight, he’s only fought 3 actual junior middleweights who had been fighting at that weight for most of their careers.

The other 8 fighters that Canelo has faced have been welterweights that either moved up to fight him for a payday or simply moved up because they weren’t competitive at 147 against the better fighters.

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Khan will give Mayweather problems, says Jones Jr.

08/01/201401/12/2014 Jeff Sorby

Roy Jones Jr. believes that the tall 5’10” Amir Khan will give Floyd Mayweather Jr. a lot of problems if he’s the one that ends up facing him in his next fight on My 3rd. Jones Jr. thinks that Khan has the boxing skills and the speed to trouble Mayweather if he avoids trying to slug it out. Jones Jr. thinks Khan is a very good fighter when he’s focusing just on boxing his opponents.

Where he gets into trouble is when he goes out looking to punch. Jones Jr. thinks if Khan comes out with the right game plan to just box with Mayweather then the fight will be a tough one for Mayweather.

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Broner: Nobody is talking about Maidana’s win; just my loss

08/02/201401/11/2014 Jeff Sorby

Former WBA 147 lb. champion Adrien Broner (27-1, 22 KO’s) is poised to get a rematch against Marcos Maidana (35-3, 31 KO’s) on April 19th or April 26th, provided that Maidana doesn’t choose to ignore the rematch clause that the 24-year-old Broner exercised on Friday and fight someone else instead for better money. The only other fighter that Maidana could fight that would give him a bigger payday than the Broner rematch is a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. That doesn’t seem too likely given that Amir Khan is being talked about as Mayweather’s next opponent for his Mayweather 3rd bout.

Broner is already vowing to get revenge against Maidana by turning into a type of fighter that he’s never seen before. Of course, if Broner couldn’t fight any better than he did last time then it’s hard to imagine him showing a hidden gear in a rematch.

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Maidana wonders why he should give Broner a rematch

01/10/2014 Jeff Sorby

WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (35-3, 31 KO’s) wonders why he should have to do Adrien Broner (27-1, 22 KO’s) a favor and give him a rematch when he wasn’t given a rematch against Amir Khan when he lost a close 12 round decision against him four years ago in 2010. Earlier today ESPN writer Dan Rafael revealed that Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer said that Broner and Maidana would be fighting a rematch in April.

Maidana finds it interesting that he’s being steered into a giving an immediate rematch against Broner, but he wasn’t given a rematch with Khan after all these years by Golden Boy. It just kind of makes you wonder whether Maidana should walk away from Broner rematch the way that Khan walked away from him. If Golden Boy wouldn’t get Maidana a rematch with Khan, then why should Maidana give Broner an immediate rematch?

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Broner: The rematch with Maidana will be different

01/09/2014 Jeff Sorby

Former WBA welterweight champion Adrien Broner (27-1, 22 KO’s) realizes what he did wrong in his loss last month to Marcos Maidana (35-3, 31 KO’s), and he wants to fix those problems in a rematch as soon as possible. Broner doesn’t want to fight anyone else until after he gets Maidana in the ring and proves that the loss was just a fluke thing, and not something that was indicative of him lacking super star class talent.

“A y’all bout to see me back in the ring in some weeks,” Broner said on his twitter. “And I ain’t fighting nobody until I fight Chino Maidana again. I’m a warrior. I give props when it’s due and Chino Maidana out-hustled me that night but this rematch will be different!”

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