Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley II: Is It a Make It or Break it Fight?

pac#6 - Copy For Manny Pacquiao, despite his phenomenal popularity and status in the sport of boxing, the road back to the top, will be much harder and longer than for any other currently in the sport.

Winning a fight is a good step forward, but it’s getting the nod from the fans that might take more effort than most assume.

Believe it or not, but I would bet that his knockout loss to Marquez has probably affected Pacquiao in the most minimalistic fashion. Not only did he hold victories against Marquez before he lost, but Dinamita is an established world class champion with unbelievable technical boxing ability and heart.

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Fury upset that WBC dropped him in rankings

fury111 Before Tyson Fury wasted a lot of time trying to get a fight against David Haye, he was ranked high by the WBC and within position to compete for the WBC heavyweight title. But with two fights against Haye falling through, Fury now finds himself having been dropped to No.8 by the World Boxing Council, and he’s nowhere near getting a crack at that belt. Needless to say, Fury’s not happy about it and he complained at length about it on Buncey’s Boxing Podcast this week.

Here’s some of what Fury said:

“There was three people eligible to fight for the vacant WBC title. One of them was me because I beat Kevin Johnson in a WBC eliminator. Another one was Bermane Stiverne because he beat Chris Arreola in an eliminator.

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Is Tim Bradley pricing himself out for the Pacquiao fight?

bradley17 - Copy The negotiations between Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KO’s) and WBO welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s) are dragging out a lot longer than what many boxing experts expected it to for their proposed April 12th rematch at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to Steve Kim, Bradley is asking for an $8 million guarantee for the rematch with Pacquiao, which is above the $5 million that he received in their previous fight in June of 2012.

That fight brought in close to 900,000 PPV buys. But with Pacquiao losing that one, and then getting stopped by Juan Manuel Marquez in December of 2012, the interest in Pacquiao’s fights may have dropped off with boxing fans. His last fight against Brandon Rios brought in just 475,000 PPV buys.

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Juan Carlos Gomez calls out Yoan Pablo Hernandez

PanteraGomez “The Black Panther” reunited with championship coach Fritz Sdunek

Last year former WBC cruiserweight champion Juan Carlos Gomez successfully returned to his old weight division at 200 lbs. after campaigning at heavyweight for more than 10 years. Now “The Black Panther” is eyeing another world title shot for 2014. “I would love to fight against Marco Huck because I think he is the best cruiserweight in the world right now – at least until I beat him”, states Gomez.

Because Huck is set to defend his WBO championship against Firat Arslan on January 25 in Stuttgart, Gomez is now calling out fellow Cuban defector and IBF titlist Yoan Pablo Hernandez.

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Canelo to battle Alfredo Angulo on March 8th in Las Vegas, Nevada

canelo74 Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s) will be playing it safe for his next fight by taking a confidence builder fight against Alfredo Angulo (22-3, 18 KO’s) on March 8th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mexican news site Esto has broken the story about this match-up. The Canelo-Angulo fight is expected to be a pay-per-view bout on Showtime. It’s going to be interesting to see how much this fight will be going for on PPV, because both fighters are coming off of losses.

Canelo is headlining the card, and hopefully Golden Boy Promotions will stack the undercard with interesting fights to make it worth purchasing on PPV. For a main event fight, Canelo-Angulo is not an appealing fight when you’re talking about paying to see it. Of course, if Golden Boy chooses to have this fight on regular Showtime then this isn’t a bad tuneup fight for Canelo. But in no way should this be a PPV fight.

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Will Arum free Pacquiao so he can fight Mayweather?

arum3432 Manny Pacquiao’s lawyer Franklin Gacal Jr. thinks Bob Arum of Top Rank should be a good one and free Manny Pacquiao up from the remainder of his contract with Top Rank so that Pacquiao can fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a history-making bout in 2014. Pacquiao is still under contract with Arum for the whole of 2014, and as long as he’s with him, Mayweather will not agree to fight Pacquiao.

Would Arum agree to let Pacquiao leave Top Rank for the good of Pacquiao? There’s no question that a Mayweather fight would be a big boost for Pacquiao’s career right now. He’s lost 2 out of his last 3 fights, his last fight against Arum’s fighter Brandon Rios was disappointment in bringing in only 475,000 pay-perv-view buys. Arum says fans weren’t interested because the fight took place in Macao, China instead of the United States. Getting beaten in back to back fights probably didn’t help Manny any.

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Mikey Garcia vs. Juan Carlos Burgos & Bryant Jennings vs. Artur Szpilka on Jan. 25th on HBO

garcia5454 HBO’s hit late-night boxing franchise begins 2014 with an all-action doubleheader featuring an intriguing junior lightweight title showdown when HBO BOXING AFTER DARK: MIKEY GARCIA VS. JUAN CARLOS BURGOS AND BRYANT JENNINGS VS. ARTUR SZPILKA is seen SATURDAY, JAN. 25 at 9:45 p.m. (live ET/tape-delayed PT), exclusively on HBO. The HBO Sports team will be ringside for the event, which will be available in HDTV, closed-captioned for the hearing-impaired and presented in Spanish on HBO Latino.

Other HBO playdates: Jan. 26 (9:30 a.m.) and 28 (midnight)

HBO2 playdates: Jan. 26 (4:45 p.m.) and 27 (11:00 p.m.)

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Pascal vs. Bute, Alvarez vs. Oosthuizen and Perez vs. Takam is seen Saturday, Jan. 18

froch3243 American fight fans will see the biggest bout in Canadian boxing history when the action-packed tripleheader WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING: JEAN PASCAL VS. LUCIAN BUTE, ELEIDER ALVAREZ VS. THOMAS OOSTHUIZEN AND MIKE PEREZ VS. CARLOS TAKAM is presented SATURDAY, JAN. 18 at 10:15 p.m. (live ET/tape-delayed PT) from the Bell Centre in Montreal, exclusively on HBO. The HBO Sports team will call all the action, presented in HDTV and in Spanish on HBO Latino.

Other HBO playdates: Jan. 19 (8:30 a.m.) and 21 (midnight)

HBO2 playdates: Jan. 19 (4:00 p.m.) and 20 (11:00 p.m.)

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Robert Guerrero still not scheduled to fight after 8 months out of ring

guerrero562 Former three division world champion Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (31-2-1, 18 KO’s) has gone quiet after getting a big payday fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last year in May. Guerrero worked hard to get the fight with Floyd by constantly calling him out in the media for well over a year, and beating Selcuk Aydin and Andre Berto by 12 round decisions. But since the fight with Mayweather, Guerrero has stayed out of the ring and hasn’t scheduled any fights.

Last month, Guerrero mentioned wanting to fight Manny Pacquiao in an interview with the Philippine Star. Guerrero felt that this was a fight that boxing fans would want to see. But how can Guerrero call out fighters like Pacquiao when he’s not staying active. Just hanging out and calling out a big name after a loss and a layoff is kind of a weak way of getting big fight.

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Arum: Pacquiao may renew contract [with Top Rank] past 2015

pac8787 pac8787 If you were one of the fans who were hoping that Manny Pacquiao would leave Top Rank when his contract expires with them at the end of 2014, you might not be happy to read the news from Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, who is saying that Pacquiao may re-sign with Top Rank to stay with them beyond 2015. This could mean a 2-year contract or possibly even longer.

“I just had a good meeting with Michael [Koncz] yesterday, and I’ll leave it at that,” said Arum via RingTV. “I have a contract with Manny, and he’s saying that we may very well renew the contract past 2015.”

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