Mayweather vs. Pacquiao

Once dominant British super middleweight Joe Calzaghe, who himself retired undefeated following his fight with Roy Jones Jr in 2008, has spoken to Sky Sports News this morning ahead of this Saturday’s Vegas mega-fight.

Calzaghe, whose unblemished record also included a marquee Las Vegas fight ( Vs Bernard Hopkins in 2008) ended his own spectacular career with a perfect 46-0 slate.

The Welshman, who has previously spoken about the burden of Floyd protecting his ‘0’ gave his opinion on proceedings following his return from the States where he was guest analyst on last weeks Dirrell – Jack PBC broadcast. He said;

“It’s a fight boxing needs. Two of the world’s best P4P finally fighting each other. For boxing fans it is a tremendous fight”

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It looks like Amir Khan couldn’t help knocking the Freddie Roach trained Manny Pacquiao ahead of Saturday night in his most recent Fighthype.com interview.

Khan, who famously left the Wildcard and Roach under something of a cloud following his knockout loss to Danny Garcia in 2012, has cited Roach’s Parkinson’s disease as a factor in leaving in the past, as well as the fact he didn’t want to play second fiddle in Roach’s affections and attention to the P4P Filipino fighter.

Pacquiao, known for his movement and speed of hand AND foot, has had his ability to work inside the pocket called into question in this fight.

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There is a small, yet elite club of fighters past and present who have faced off against BOTH Mayweather and Pacquiao in the ring.

Oscar De La Hoya, Juan Manuel Marquez, Shane Mosley, Miguel Cotto and Britain’s Ricky Hatton.

Ahead of Saturday’s dust-up Hatton, who boxed Mayweather in 2007 and Pacquiao in 2009 has spoken exclusively to the BBC to offer his tactical analysis of the fight from his insider’s perspective.

His fight with Mayweather, after some initial success, sadly began to become one sided and the “Hitman” was caught walking onto a big Mayweather left-hook in the 10th.

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Serafim Todorov happened to be the last opponent in Mayweather’s amateur career which ended bitterly for the mega star with a 10:9 loss under the computerized scoring system. Todorov is an ex-amateur boxing prodigy from Bulgaria and is now living on a subsistence allowance in the projects of a Bulgarian town and has been “forgotten by everyone but the Lord” as he likes to repeat. He is an Olympic silver medalist, a three time world and twice European champion and his only steady income is the government pension (about $430) he was awarded for his Olympic medal. He would indeed have disappeared form the public eye if he had not given a rare interview last year to a local TV station which came to the attention of CNN that decided to feature him in a short documentary.

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Paulie Malignaggi, a man we are more used to being behind the mic these days has spoken to iFLtv at the MGM Grand in Vegas ahead of Saturday’s “super-fight”. The Magic Man, who plans on making his own in-ring return later in May on the Khan-Algieri undercard against Danny O’Connor said of the enormity of Saturday’s massive main event;

“It’s the biggest fight of the last 15 years, at least going into it. I think the last time we talked this much about a fight was maybe Tyson vs Lewis, De La Hoya vs Trinidad. Neither of those fights really lived up to the hype so it’s hard to live up to the hype of the BIG events. Hagler/Hearns, you know that lived up to the hype. Some fights do live up to the hype so we’ll see. Hopefully we’ll be talking about how amazing it was once it’s over as opposed to forgetting about it like those other events.”

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