This weekend is certainly not a busy one, but there some real highlights taking place through out Saturday.
For many hardcore fans the stand out fight comes from Sonora where WBA “interim” Super Flyweight champion David Sanchez (28-2-2, 22) defends his title against the always fun to watch Luis Concepcion (32-4, 23). Both men have the ability to put on thrillers so we're hoping that this one lives up to the expectation and delivers and all out war. The winner will be the top contender for the upcoming “regular” title fight between Kohei Kono and Koki Kameda, who fight next month in the US. Staying in Mexico there is brilliant female world title bout between the fantastic Arely Mucino (21-2-2, 10) and the equally brilliant Jessica Chavez (23-4-3, 4). On paper this is brilliantly matched, especially give their 2013 split decision draw, and we're expecting a lot of high paced action between these two. Coming in Mucino is the WBC female Flyweight champion and will be defending her title for the first time since claiming it from Shindo Go earlier this year. South African boxing certainly isn't thriving but with Rodney Berman they do have a promoter willing to really invest in their fighters and the national scene. Today Berman puts his Minimumweight world champion Hekkie Budler (28-1, 9) up against fellow South African Simphiwe Khonco (15-4, 7) in a WBA title defense for the “Hexecutioner”. On paper it looks like a mismatch but Khonco is better than his record suggests, and has won his last 9, whilst Budler may not quite be as good as the numbers suggest. Hopefully the winner of this will agree to a unification bout with one of the other champions, such as Kosei Tanaka or Wanheng Menayothin, or face WBA #1 ranked contender Knockout CP Freshmart. In England we get an excellent Super Featherweight bout as local favourite Stephen Smith (22-1, 12) faces Italian visitor Devis Boschiero (37-3-1, 19). Smith, the younger brother of 2-time world title challenger Paul Smith, is hoping to get a world title fight if he wins here and although he's a big betting favourite there are a number of fans picking the visitor. As for Boschiero the under-rated visitor has challenged for a world title, losing a very close one to Takahiro Ao, and lost twice in very close bouts to European champion Romain Jacob. Potentially this is the fight of the night and the winner is expected to face IBF king pin Jose Pedraza in 2016
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This past Saturday was an interesting day in world boxing, though it was far from a key date for international fans. The one man who it as a very important day for was WBO Cruiserweight champion Marco Huck (38-2, 26) who made a record equalling 13th defence of his world title by out pointing the previously unbeaten challenger Mirko Larghetti (21-1, 13). The bout ended in confusing fashion with Huck looking like he had knocked out Larghetti at the end of the bout though the referee decided that the punch had come after the bell and we went to the cards which all favoured Huck. Although Huck was successful in the ring we felt he was disappointing and it appears he is struggling to continue at Cruiserweight. Although he likely wants to set a Cruiserweight record for most defences he really needs to pick his opponent carefully then move up rather than continue to drain himself to 200lbs. Whilst Huck retained his title we saw another man picking up a title. That man was the newly crowned WBA interim Bantamweight champion Yonfrez Parejo (16-1-1, 7) who scored an 11th round stoppage over Luis Hinojosa (25-8-0-1, 15) to claim the title. The loss for Hinojosa was his first loss in 27 bouts whilst it extended Parejo's current winning run to 5 bouts following his sole loss to Hugo Ruiz back in 2012. In a 10 round non-title bout WBA interim Super Flyweight champion David Sanchez (26-2-2, 20) stopped Anuar Salas (14-3, 10). The bout, which ended in round 5 after Salas was dropped and failed to fully recover, saw Sanchez move 1 step closer to getting a world title fight with Kohei Kono though at the moment the WBA have the issues surround Koki Kameda standing in the way of any prospective title fight. We suspect Watanabe would pay big money to get a Kono/Sanchez bout made for New Years Eve though at the moment they would still need the WBA to show some flexibility on the Kameda situation. In female title action fans in Venezuela saw Mayerlin Rivas (10-3-1, 7) stop Arely Valente (12-2-1, 6) in 9 rounds to claim the WBA interim Female Bantamweight title. A second female world title bout saw Peruvian Linda Laura Lecca (11-2-1, 3) retain her WBA interim female Super Flyweight title with a decision victory over Mexico's game but limited Guadalupe Martinez (7-7, 3). (Image courtesy of http://www.boxnews.com.ua) Some days just look like they will be fun. The days may be full of mismatches but they look like fun mismatches with fighters we don't mind watching. This Saturday is likely to be one of those days. The biggest fight, by far, this weekend will see the big punching WBC Light Heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (23-1, 20) defending his title against Polish challenger Andrzej Fonfara (25-2-0-1, 15). Stevenson is a man who was being lined up to fight Russia's Sergey Kovalev though it appears that bout is now off the table after a lot of disagreements from the promotional teams of the two men. Instead it appears that Stevenson will be looking for Bernard Hopkins, if he's successful here. Stevenson is a monster puncher and was one of the revelations of 2013. Sadly for Fonfara he's probably on to a hiding to nothing, albeit a high profile hiding. With the power of Stevenson it's hard not to image that this will be fun. On the same Canadian card we're expecting an enjoyable clash between fringe contenders David Lemieux (31-2, 29) and Fernando Guerrero (26-2, 19). Both men are flawed and very limited but together they should manage to put on an entertaining, albeit shot lived, Middleweight scrap. Also on this same card is a clash between the world ranked Eleider Alvarez (14-0, 8) and the once beaten Alexander Johnson (15-1, 6). Alvarez made some enemies last time he was in the ring by acting like a spoilt brat. We're hoping that Alvarez doesn't just retain his unbeaten record but also shows some new found maturity. Whilst the most significant show of the day is in Canada it's not the only show with some bouts of interest. In fact we have two other notable shows in Mexico. The most significant single bout on those show's is in Acapulco convention center as WBC Featherweight champion Jhonny Gonzalez (55-8, 47) makes the first defence of the title he won from Abner Mares last year. Gonzalez is facing the unbeaten but unknown Clive Atwell (12-0-1, 7) from Guyana. Atwell is ranked #12 by the WBC and is on an 11 fight winning streak though his competition to date has been obscure to say the least and it's hard to imagine anything but a Gonzalez victory here. On the other Mexican card of note, in Baja California, we get two world title bouts. The most interesting of those is, oddly, a female bout as the returning Jackie Nava (28-4-3, 12) battles WBA female interim Super Bantamweight champion Alys Sanchez (12-1-1, 4). Nava hasn't fought in well over a year, having had a child in that time, though will be favoured to over-come Venezuela's Sanchez, who actually lost in a non-title bout last time out. This is a bout that looks interesting due to Nava's long lay off, though if "La Princesa Azteca" is half the fighter she was back in 2012, she wins this bout with out any major issues. On the same card is a WBA interim Super Flyweight bout that sees the talented David Sanchez (24-2-2, 19), no relation to Alys, taking on the limited Breilor Teran (13-9-1, 6). The "vacant" interim title is almost being gift wrapped for the WBA #3 ranked Sanchez here with Teran somehow holding a #9 ranking. We'll be honest and say we'd rather have seen Sanchez battle the WBA regular champion Kohei Kono than cheapen the WBA belts with this mismatch though with a strong rumour that we;ll be seeing Kono defending against WBA's top ranked challenger Koki Kameda we do understand why Sanchez is being given a WBA title fight, even if we do view it as a mismatch. (Image courtesy of Groupe Yvon Michel) |
InternationalWe know that not every fight involves an Asian fighter but a lot of fights do affect Asian fighter. As a result we've decided to add this new section to Asian boxing where we look at selected International bouts. Archives
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