Maidana must rough up Mayweather to win

04/02/201403/29/2014 Jeff Sorby

WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (35-3, 31 KO’s) is going to need to throw the rule book out the window on May 3rd for him to beat Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s) in their pay per view clash on Showtime from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Maidana is going to need to do everything he can to win this fight, including bending the rules in order to make give himself a chance to win.

Maidana doesn’t match up in the speed department or the skills with Mayweather. He also doesn’t have Mayweather’s vast experience both as a professional and as an amateur. Maidana has a couple of things going for him in this fight and that’s his power and his rough house style of fighting.

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Chavez Jr-Golovkin fight to have $1 million weight penalty for both fighters

03/29/2014 Jeff Sorby

WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (48-1-1, 32 KO’s) now has a big reason for him to make weight for his proposed July 19th fight against middleweight Gennady Golovkin (29-0, 26 KO’s) for their fight at 168 pounds on HBO. If Chavez Jr. fails to make weight, it’s going to cost him $1 million. Chavez Jr. agreed to the weight penalty on Friday.

The penalty also applies to Golovkin if he can’t make the 168lb, but he probably won’t struggle with the weight. It’s Chavez Jr. who is built like a cruiserweight, and who clearly is already having problems making weight for his fights at super middleweight despite having moved up from the middleweight division only last year. It seems likely that Chavez Jr. will need to make a move to the light heavyweight division in the near future if he doesn’t want to end up losing fights due to him being weigh-drained.

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Hearn wants to make Cleverly-Bellew rematch after Nathan’s May 17th fight

03/28/201403/27/2014 Jeff Sorby

Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn says he wants to put together a big rematch between his recently signed former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Nathan Cleverly (26-1, 12 KO’s) and former WBC Silver light heavyweight champion Tony Bellew (21-2-1, 13 KO’s) as soon as Cleverly gets past his scheduled May 17th fight date at the Motorpoint Arena, in Cardiff, Wales.

Hearn doesn’t have an opponent picked out for Cleverly yet, but suffice it to say that it won’t be anyone good enough to worry the 27-year-old fighter any. This is Cleverly’s cruiserweight debut, so Hearn will make sure that he matches him softly so there’s no chance of a mishap. Hearn almost blew it with his matching of Bellew against 37-year-old Valery Brudov this month in a fight that Bellew took a beating and was staggered at one point in the fight in the 7th round.

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Mike Alvarado wants to retire Juan Manuel Marquez on May 17th

03/27/201403/26/2014 Jeff Sorby

Former WBO light welterweight champion Mike Alvarado (34-2, 23 KO’s) wants to not only beat 40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez (55-7-1, 40 KO’s) in their fight on May 17th, but also send Marquez into retirement. For Alvarado, it’s about redeeming himself from his recent 10th round stoppage loss at the hands of Ruslan Provodnikov and also doing it in a fashion where he sends Marquez into a permanent retirement. I guess it’s one of those two for the price of one deals.

“Redeeming myself and retiring the legend is even better,” Alvarado said to Radio Raheem. “I’m destined to be great. I’m good but I’m not better than good.”

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Khan says his fight against Collazo will “steal the show” on May 3rd

03/26/2014 Jeff Sorby

Amir Khan (28-3, 19 KO’s) says his performance against Luis Collazo (35-5, 18 KO’s) on May 3d will “steal the show” on the Floyd Mayweather – Marcos Maidana card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Khan expects to steal the thunder from the headline fight between Mayweather and Maidana by really shining against the 32-year-old Collazo. That may be.

Khan has a guy that he can certainly do that against, as long as he’s careful and doesn’t run into any of Collazo’s right hooks the way that Victor Ortiz did in his 2nd round knockout loss to him last January.

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Mayweather-Maidana fight card is the most expensive PPV card in history, says Schaefer

03/27/201403/26/2014 Jeff Sorby

Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer revealed on Wednesday that the May 3rd Mayweather-Maidana fight card is the most expensive card in the history of the sport. It’s unknown if Schaefer was just talking up the fight card to make it seem bigger than it is or if he was dead serious.

Besides the headline fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Marcos Maidana, the undercard fights are as follows: Amir Khan vs. Luis Collazo in the chief support, Adrien Broner taking on Carlos Molina in light welterweight action, and super middleweight J’Leon Love fighting Marco Antonio Periban.

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Keith Thurman faces Julio Diaz on 4/26 in Carson, California

03/25/2014 Jeff Sorby

Julio Diaz (40-9-1, 29 KO’s) will be facing interim WBA welterweight champion Keith Thurman (22-0, 20 KO’s) next on 4/26 at the StubHub center in Carson, California in a fight that will be broadcast by Showtime. It looks like Al Haymon and Golden Boy Promotions don’t want to take any chances that Thurman, 25, doesn’t get beaten before he gets his title shot against the WBA welterweight champion.

Thurman gets an easy fight against Diaz, who is coming off of back to back losses to Amir Khan and Shawn Porter. That’s rare to have a fighter with two straight losses fighting against a champion, even an interim title holder like Thurman. I wonder how many more times Diaz will get used in this fashion, because at some point it’s going to look really bad having him brought out to face Golden Boy’s fighters with so many consecutive losses.

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Wladimir Klitschko: Leapai is so strong that he doesn’t need technique or strategy

03/25/201403/25/2014 Jeff Sorby

IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (61-3, 51 KO’s) is very wary of the huge power of his opponent Alex Leapai (30-4-3, 24 KO’s), and he’s vowing now to underestimate him in their fight on April 26th at the Koenig Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Leapai pulled off an upset in defeating Denis Boytsov by a 10 round unanimous decision last November in their WBC title eliminator bout in Germany. Boytsov was expected to win the fight handily, but he found himself getting dropped by Leapai and dominated.

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Deontay Wilder sees himself stopping Arreola and Stiverne early

07/31/201403/23/2014 Jeff Sorby

WBC mandatory challenger Deontay Wilder (31-0, 31 KO’s) can’t wait to get his chance at fighting the winner of the May 10th fight between Chris Arreola (36-3, 31 KO’s) and Bermane Stiverne (23-1-1, 20 KO’s). Deontay will be fighting the winner of that fight later on this year, and he doesn’t see either of them as having the size and/or the talent to make it out of the early rounds against him.

Surprisingly, the 6’7” Deontay sees the 6’1” Stiverne as being the easier fight for him due to Stiverne’s habit of staying on the outside and using his jab. Deontay feels he could bomb Stiverne out of there from long range and make easy work of him.

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Pacquiao to Bradley: My time isn’t finished yet

03/23/2014 Jeff Sorby

Watching last night’s Manny Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley face off with Max Kellerman was like two guys in a playground with one guy saying he’s better than the other and the other saying no he’s not. It seemed kind of pointless after a while. Kellerman needs to do a better job of coming up with questions because the whole thing comes across like Kellerman’s an employer interviewing two job applicants. ‘Tell me why I should hire you,’ type of thing. It’s like where an employer interviews two people at once and it’s embarrassing and more than little degrading for the guys being interviewed.

“My time is not finished yet,” Pacquiao said in response to Bradley claiming that he doesn’t have the hunger he once had. “I can say that. They [the fans] should watch the fight to get rid of all the question marks in their minds. This will answer all the questions from the past.”

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