Much of today's most notable and most exciting comes from Canada where fans are in for a treat, in fact they are in for one of the best shows this year with 3 genuinely notable bouts and 2 lesser quality support bouts. As well as the Canadian show we also have notable action in Mexico with several interesting contests. We'll start with Canada where the main event is a blockbuster Light Heavyweight bout between the thunderously hard hiting Sergey Kovalev (26-0-1, 23) and tough Canadian based Haitian Jean Pascal (29-2-1-1, 17). Kovalev will be defending the WBA “Super” , IBF and WBO titles in his first bout since he convincingly defeated Bernard Hopkins last year and this could be his second big win. As for Pascal he needs a good win here if he's to remain a big fighter fighter, especially after his farcical contest with Roberto Bolonti last time out and his terrible unexciting contest with Lucian Buta last January. A brilliant support bout will see former Cruiserweight champion Steve Cunningham (28-6, 13) battle against unbeaten Heavyweight hopeful Vyacheslav Glazkov (19-0-1, 12) who has been really been unconvincing in recent contests. Glazkov needs a good performance to remain relevant whilst Cunningham will be hoping to move one fight closer to a potential mega-payday which he is well due before his retirement. The second big support bout will see Vasily Lepikhin (17-0, 9) battle against Isaac Chilemba (23-2-2, 10) in a really well match Light Heavyweight bout. The winner here may well be the next opponent for the Kovalev/Pascal winner and it wouldn't be a surprise for this contest to be a very competitive bout. In a supporting under-card bout Nadjib Mohammedi (36-3, 22), another top Light Heavyweight contender, will take on Lee Campbell (8-1, 4) in a stay busy fight whilst former Light Welterweight title challenger Dierry Jean (27-1, 19) takes on Carlos Manuel Reyes (25-3-1, 17) in what should be an easy win for Jean. In Tijuana, Mexico fans will get the chance to see former world IBF Super Flyweight champion Juan Carlos Sanchez Jr (19-3-1, 9) battle against the highly experienced Luis Melendez (41-9-1, 30), himself a former world title challenger. This could be an good contest but Sanchez Jr should be too fresh for the 35 year old Melendez. On the same card Yazmin Rivas (31-8-0-4, 9) looks to defend her WBC female Bantamweight title against the little known Celina Salazar (6-1-2, 1). On a second Mexican card, held in México, fan will see heavy handed Bantamweight contender Julio Ceja (28-1, 26) battle against former world title challenger Oscar Blanquet (32-9-1, 23), who enters this bout on a run of 5 successive losses including a loss to Akira Yaegashi and a stoppage to Roman Gonzalez. (Image courtesy of fightnetwork.com)
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This past weekend, for many fans, has been a write off and a chance to vent at Al Haymon, Showtime, Golden Boy Promotions and various other American boxing personnel. We're not going to rant and rave about how bad the action was and how badly matched up the 3 televised bouts on Showtime were, instead we're just going to give you the results in succinct manner. You've already read the rants and anyway, why should we waste your time and why should we pretend the card was actually worth caring about? So here we go. Daniel Jacobs (28-1, 25) claimed the WBA "regular" Middleweight title with an easy 5th round TKO over Australian Jarrod Fletcher (18-2, 10). Jacobs will now paraded around the world with a paper title whilst Fletcher will be feeling relieved that he wasn't forced into a fight with Gennady Golovkin, as was looking likely at one point early this year. Lamont Peterson (33-2-1, 17) put on a 1-sided beating against Edgar Santana (29-5, 20) with Santana looking more like a punch bag than a legitimate challenger for the IBF Light Welterweight title. It was one-sided from the opening round and eventually the doctor stopped it to protect Santana from further punishment. Danny Garcia (29-0, 17) almost beheaded the criminally over-matched Rod Salka (19-4, 3). This bout, fought at 142lbs, looked similar to seeing a college kid beating up a high school kid and Salka, despite being a really charming guy, had no real reason to be in the ring. That's all we are going to say on that stinking, awful and ridiculous card. Thankfully there was more action from the US as NBCSN put on an interesting card that featured a number of notable fighters. The most competitive of the action here saw Heavyweight hopeful Vyacheslav Glazkov (18-0-1, 11) struggle past journeyman Derric Rossy (29-9, 14) in a bout that was significantly more competitive than it looked on paper. The only black mark here in terms of the fight was the outlandish 98-92 score card from judge Pierre Benoist, a card that would have been shamed had it not been tucked away on a card many fans didn't seem to watch. Another Heavyweight on the same card was Joseph Parker (10-0, 9) who again very deservedly got rave reviews. Parker, fighting for he second ime in he US, dismantled the over-matched Keith Thompson (7-3, 4). Parker did what he was supposed to do but still generated the great feedback from fans who appear to be warming to him more than many other Heavyweight prospects. In female action we had a pair of world title bouts. At 105lbs fans in Mexico saw Victoria Argueta (13-1, 4) out point fellow Mexican Alondra Garcia (9-2, 1) in what appeared to be a relatively one sided bout, unless you were judge Joe Garcia who some how had Garcia winning 97-93, a scorecard even a close relative would have struggled to have had considering the dominance of Argueta. The other female world title bout saw historic Chilean fighter Carolina Rodriguez (13-0, 1) become the first Chilean in history to successfully defend a world title as she took a split decision over Colombian teenager Dayana Cordero (13-5-1, 9). The bout was very close despite an outlandish scorecard of 99-91 to Rodriguez. We understand that Rodriguez is a national boxing icon in Chile but the least she should do is offer a rematch to Cordero who was very unfortunate here. (Image courtesy http://foxsports.com.au) The Light Welterweight division has been one of the most interesting divisions in recent years. Whilst many fighters have used it as a stop gap before joining the always brilliant Welterweight division it has still given us some great fights such as the Mike Alvarado/Brandon Rios fights or Marcos Maidana's fights with Victor Ortiz and Amir Khan. This weekend promises us another notable contest in the 140lb division as the divisional kingpin Danny "Swift" Garcia (27-0, 16) defends his WBA "super" and WBC titles against the tough but limited Mauricio Herrera (20-3, 7) in Puerto Rico. In terms of boxing skills this shouldn't be a contest with Garcia being the much better fighter, however Herrera has got the toughness to give good fighters headaches and does hold a very notable victories over Ruslan Provodnikov and Ji-Hoon Kim. We have to strongly favour Garcia though we do expect the bout to be highly entertaining. Another bout on the same card is, arguably, the biggest all-American Heavyweight bout in a generation as Deontay Wilder (30-0, 30) puts his perfect record on the line against Malik Scott (36-1-1, 13). Wilder goes in as a notable favourite though this is a big step up for the unbeaten man and we're expecting to see him tested properly for the first time. Just a shame it's taken him almost 6 years to move up to this level. The card also features several other interesting contests. One of those is between big punching rivals as Juan Manuel Lopez (33-3, 30) faces Daniel Ponce De Leon (45-5, 35) for the second time. These two men first fought back in 2008 when Lopez announced himself on the world stage with an opening round KO over Ponce De Leon. Since their first fight however Lopez has taken a lot of punishment and Ponce De Leon has a solid chance at revenge. Another bout sees former Middleweight title challenger Daniel Jacobs (26-1, 23), a former Dmitry Pirog foe, fighting against Colombia's Milton Nunez (26-9-1, 24). Whilst Jacobs is best known for his loss to Pirog he has actually beaten some notable opponents, the same however cannot be said about Nunez who has lost to every of note, including Gennady Golovkin. With that in mind we're expecting Jacobs to win by stoppage. One more bout on this card features Lightweight hopeful Jose A Gonzalez (22-1, 17) who famously gave Ricky Burns, the then WBO Lightweight champion, a tough test last year. Gonzalez, fighting against Ramesis Gil (8-8-5, 5), will likely be hoping to get a second world title fight later this year and from what we've seen of him he could well be a nightmare for anyone else at 135lbs. In the US the most notable bout is another Heavyweight contest as Poland's Tomasz Adamek (49-2, 29) meets Ukrainian Vyacheslav Glazkov (16-0-1, 11) in what is a major bout for both. Both still have ambition to be be a Heavyweight world champion though both have seen their stock drop in recent fights and a loss for either man would effectively be the end of their dreams. Major bout and one that could force one of the men to retire. In the UK we have 2 bouts of note. The key one sees perennial Welterweight contender Kell Brook (31-0, 21) attempt to stay busy as he fights Alvaro Robles (17-2, 15) in what should be Brook's final bout before a world title contest. Then again every bout seems to be Brook's final bout before a world title fight. The other bout of note in the UK sees former 2-time Lightweight title challenger Kevin Mitchell (36-2, 26) fighting against Mikheil Avakyan (21-11-4, 8). Whilst this is a "gimme" for Mitchell the expectation is that a victory here will see him moved on to a world title fight with IBF champion Miguel Vazquez later this year. A loss here though and that'll be the end for the highly touted Mitchell. 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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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