IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (29-0-1, 26 KOs) gave 33-year-old Jean Pascal (30-4-1, 17 KOs) a real pounding tonight in a prolonged beating that finally ended when Pascal’s new trainer Freddie Roach pulled him out of the fight after the 7th round at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.
(Photo credit: Showtime Boxing) WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (35-0, 34 KOs) say he thinks that IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) will fight him in the future in a unification fight. Wilder says he sees Fury as a tall guy with little power who likes to act like a fool inside the ring. Wilder says Fury knows he’ll get knocked out when he faces him.
Fury needs to get past Wladimir Klitschko before there can be any talk of a unification fight between Wilder and Fury. Wilder will be making a defense of his WBC title this month against Artur Szpilka on January 16, but it’s seen as a forgone conclusion that Wilder will win that fight by knockout.
WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (23-0, 12 KOs) would be willing to take less money if IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) were willing to travel to the UK to fight him over there in his own home territory for a unification fight in April.
Golovkin and his management are the ones that really want the fight with Saunders, as they want to pick up another title so that they can have a chance to unify all the belts. It seems less important to Saunders to unify the titles. He just won the WBO belt in beating Andy Lee last December, and he wants to hold onto his belt as long as possible and make some good defenses of his title.
It’s not going to be easy for Gennady Golovkin and his management to get a unification fight against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders for April 23. Saunders is saying that the offer that was made to him by Golovkin’s management at K2 Promotions was not enough for him to agree to a fight against the 33-year-old IBF/IBO/WBA champion Golovkin.
Saunders, 26, says he wants more money and/or Golovkin to agree to come to the UK to fight him. Golovkin fights on HBO, so it’s not probable that he would be able to fight Saunders in the UK due to the time zone issues HBO would have to deal with in a fight like this.
(Photo credit: Lucas Noonan/Premier Boxing Champions) WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (35-0, 34 KOs) registered his 34th knockout of his career against a very tough Johann Duhaupas (32-3, 20 KOs) in stopping him in the 11th round on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC from the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama. Wilder, 29, hurt Duhaupas with some brutally hard uppercuts in the 11th round.
After being compared in an unfavorable way to Amir Khan in how he did in beating Luis Collazo last year, WBA welterweight champion Keith Thurman (26-0, 22 Kos) says he’s ready to fight Khan next if he’s interested in fighting, and he’ll travel to the UK to fight Khan at Wembley Stadium in London if he’s willing to take the fight.
Thurman, 26, has taking a lot of heat from boxing fans due to the way he looked against Collazo last Saturday night in beating him by a harder than expected 8th round TKO at the USF Sundome Arena in Tampa, Florida. To be sure, Thurman got the victory, but he also was hurt by Collazo in the 5th, and he ran from the 34-year-old fighter through most of.
Right now there are a lot of boxing fans and members of the media who have serious doubts about WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (34-0, 33 KOs) being able to hold onto his WBC heavyweight title for very much longer. Wilder’s performance last night against Eric Molina (23-3, 17 KOs) was arguably one of the worst performances by a heavyweight world champion in many years.
Recently, ESPN named Terence Crawford as their Fighter of the Year for 2014 due to his wins over Raymundo Beltran, Yuriorkis Gamboa and Ricky Burns. However, only the Gamboa fight was truly interesting to watch, and the Burns fight really proved nothing given how poor Burns has looked since then.
Gamboa is really a pumped up featherweight who had no business fighting in the lightweight division against a fighter the size of Crawford. The Crawford-Beltran fight was not an interesting fight to watch due to Crawford’s constantly clinching each time Beltran would get in position to throw a punch. It was not great television, believe me.
Even at #4 WBO, you can make an argument that Lee doesn’t deserve that ranking because he hasn’t beaten a decent middleweight since his win over Brian Vera three years ago in 2011. Lee’s wins since then has come against middleweights with marginal talent, and against junior middleweights like John Jackson.
A couple days ago reports surfaced about there being a deal for a December fight between WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) and #1 WBC Deontay Wilder. Apparently, someone spoke too soon, because Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya says that there has been no deal reached between the 35-year-old Stiverne and the 6’7” Wilder.
If the two sides are unable to come to an agreement in their negotiations then it’ll go to purse bids on October 1st next week. That’s when the World Boxing Council has scheduled a purse bid in order to finally get the fight put together.
Contrary to wretched WBC comments @OscarDeLaHoya told me today he has NOT reached terms with King on Stiverne-Wilder. #boxing,” said Dan Rafael on his Twitter.