The biggest day in Light Flyweight History?

April 30^th looks likely to be the biggest day ever in Light Flyweight history. It's a day in which the division will possibly be turned on it's head as the WBO, WBC and IBF titles are all fought for on the same night. WBPT have previewed all of the fights and we'll get onto that a little bit later on but does the division stand on the verge of a major shake up or are we going to see 3 easy title defences?

In Argentina we have a rematch of one of 2010's most controversial bouts as champion Luis Alberto Lazarte faces off against Ulises Solis in an IBF defence. The 1^st bout between the two could easily have ended mid way through due to all the fouls committed by the Argentinian champion. Now aged 40 Lazarte really needs to pull something out of the bag. Kevin Donnelly previewing the fight for WBTP ended his preview with a forewarning of “Do not be surprised to see either a wide decision or even a DQ win for the Mexican challenger.”
Solis is a class fighter and already deserves the title and I think now he gets it.

Preview of that bout can be read here (Thanks to Kevin Donnelly)

The other two fights are both in Mexico and are also both title rematches. Firstly we have WBC champion Gilberto Keb Baas facing hot youngster Adrian Hernandez. These two first met over 3 years ago and Hernandez stopped Keb Baas in the 4^th round. At that time Hernandez seemed destined for greatness he'd gone to 13-0 (11) and had beaten Keb Baas and Rodel Mayol both by 4^th round KO. Soon afterwards he suffered a draw with Eric Ortiz and a TKO loss to Oscar Ibarra. Whilst Hernandez is trying to rebuild his career somewhat Keb Baas is revelling in an Indian summer as the WBC champion having won a title on his 3^rd try.

Preview of that bout can be read here

The final fight in the divisions day to remember is another rematch though one from just a few months ago as Colombian Jesus Geles defends his WBO title against Ramon Garcia Hirales. The two met in February in a “WBO interim Unification bout”, though when Giovanni Segura made his plans to step up to Flyweight the full version of the title was award to Geles. I their first bout both fighters fought brilliantly with Geles taking a thin split decision in a fight that was really close. That fight was in Colombia and this one is in Mexico, expect the challenger to take a thin decision based on the back of the crowd's noises.

Preview of that bout can be read here

Whether it's the most important day in the divisions history or not, one thing is certain, it'll be the busiest. In a division that is as a talent laden as this one is it could be very difficult to imagine any of the winners holding the titles for too long with out being in big fights. The division boasts the unbeaten Roman Gonzalez (WBA champion), Filipino great Donnie Nietes (former WBO minimumweight champion), unbeaten Mexican Jose Rodriguez and although it's lost it's biggest name in Giovanni Segura it's still a more than interesting division. How often can we say that about the 108lbs division?

Small Pith...The Jean Pascal Lover

I recently started a website all based about world title fights called WorldBoxingTitlePreview and within a week I'd recruited a couple of writers to helps. We started by getting a guy claiming he was "Trendy Terry", then we added Small Pith Jr (a guy who stole something I said and turned it into his bloody online handle) and Kevin Donnelly. By the end of the 2nd week I'd trusted the other guys to do their own previews and stuff without the need to edit them and play about with them, then came Small's preview for Hopkins v Pascal. All I can say is that Small likes Mr Pascal a little bit too much.

You can read that preview here:
Small Pith Makes Love to Jean Pascal

I beg you to give it a go if you want a giggle.

0's go in 4 world title fights, though did anyone pick the right results?....

In my most recent entry on this blog I spoke about a busy night at the end of the month which features a number of world title fights with out any of the fighters have a 0 in their loss column. Amazingly last weekend (16^th-18^th April) we saw 6 fighters with unbeaten records competing in world title bouts. Of those 6 fighters 4 of them had perfect winning records, a combined record of those 4 fighters stood at a very impressive 99-0 (75),with Juan Manuel Lopez at 30-0 (27), Andre Berto at 27-0 (21), Paul McCloskey at 22-0 (12) and Cesar Seda at 20-0 (15). Their opponents in the title fights had pretty impressive records overall themselves at a combined 109-14-6 (80) with the individual records of Omar Narvaez 33-0-2 (19), Victor Ortiz 28-2-2 (22), Amir Khan 24-1 (17) and Orlando Salido 34-11-2-1 (22).

Now what became rather surprising was that every one of the perfect winning records was ended within around 24 hours of each other. Cesar Seda's was the first to go as he was defeated by Narvaez in a fight for the WBO Super Flyweight title. Seda had put up a very competitive effort but the champions work rate, accuracy and handspeed was the telling factor. Paul McCloskey's 0 was the next to go as WBA Light Welterweight champion Amir Khan scored a hugely controversial technical decision win after a clash of heads opened a small cut on McCloskey's head and forced the fight to the score cards early. Neither of these results were that surprising, in all honesty. What was surprising were the other two results.

Juan Manuel Lopez had entered his bout as the WBO Featherweight champion, Boxrec.com had ranked him at #1 in the division and Salido had come in on a relatively one sided loss to Yuriorkis Gamboa. Lopez was a 1/16 favourite hours prior to the fight whilst you could back Salido at odds as high as 7/1. Those that backed the underdog would have been laughing themselves silly as their man force fed Lopez a steady diet of right hands and forcing the stoppage in the 8^th round. Andre Berto had entered his bout as the WBC Welterweight champion and was around 1/3 as the favourite and Ortiz was a 7/2 underdog. Ortiz started quickly dropping the champion twice in the opening round (though only 1 was scored) and dominated much of the fight (despite being dropped twice himself). This wasn't as surprising as the Salido result but was still a big upset of the man many had ranked as the 3^rd best Welterweight in the world.

Amusingly if you'd of had a double on the upsets at the best odds you'd have walked away with 36 times your stake. Salido was actually 14/1 to win by stoppage and Ortiz by decision was 7/1, had you picked both of those results you'd have won 120 times your stake. Not too bad for a return that right there.

6 titles fights, 0 perfect records?

Last week I blogged about how there was a triple head in Japan, a show that if you caught it you'd have really enjoyed. Both Nishioka and Ao defended their titles successfully whilst Hozumi Hasegawa suffered his 2^nd stoppage loss in 3 fights at the hands of Jhonny Gonzalez. At the end of the month however boxing fans have a bit of a scheduling nightmare. America (south and north) hold no less than 6 title fights in just 1 night. They are:

Rafael Concepcion v Hugo Ruiz (WBA, Bantamweight)-Panama

Gilberto Keb Baas v Adrian Hernandez II (WBC, Light Flyweight)-Mexico

Jesus Geles v Ramon Garcia Hirales II (WBO, Light Flyweight)-Mexico

Raul Garcia v Rommel Asenjo (WBO, Minimumweight)-Mexico

Julio Cesar Miranda v Richie Mepranum II (WBO, Flyweight)-USA

Luis Alberto Lazarte v Ulises Solis II (IBF, Light Flyweight)-Argentina

Although these are all in the “smaller weights” and include 4 rematches they should include some very interesting match ups. What's perhaps the most amazing is that from the 12 fighters involved not a single one has an unbeaten record. In fact the combined losses are 52!

By fighter:

Keb Bass-20

Lazarate-9

Concepcion-5

Miranda-5

Asenjo-2

Hirales-2

Mepranum-2

Solis-2

Geles-1

Garcia-1

Hernandez-1

Ruiz-1

Could this be 4 records-

1-Most title fights on the same night? (6)

2-Most title fight rematches on the same night? (3)

3-Most combined losses of title fight fighters in 1 night? (52)

4-Most title fights with out an unbeaten record?

10-0 (10) and another "fake" record

Just a few weeks ago I was complaining about fake records, and it's that time once again to find a fighter than has a better looking record than he really deserves. 23 year old Belarussian middleweight Raman Dzekhkanau is 10-0 (10) as a professional though is actually unranked on the boxrec database due to the “quality” of his wins. So far Dzekhkanau has fought only 11 rounds a professional and has one of those records that looks pathetic when you scrape beneath the surface. Of his 10 opponents to date he has faced 8 debutants and faced opponents with a combined record of 4-6-2.

Dzekhkanau appears to be taking his first risk later this week when he faces the 3-0 (1) Polish 29 year old Robert Swierzbinski. Swierzbinski is boxrec.com's 241^st ranked Super Middleweight and through his 3 fights has already fought the same amount of rounds as Dzekhkanau. (11) though his opponents are significantly better. Combined Swierzbinski's opponents have combined for 12-0-1 and aside from his own debut he has faced more experienced fighters every time he has fought.

Although it's not a forgone conclusion this time around, I'd be surprised if the Pole doesn't win, probably by decision after 6 rounds.

Japanese Triple header

This coming Friday night sees a boxing triple header with 3 world title fights on the same card. Although the card is in Japan it's certainly a must watch for all boxing fans as some of the best smaller men in the sport put it on the line in 3 rather interesting bouts. The last triple header I can remember was a Don King card in St Louis which had the following fights:

Devon Alexander v Andriy Kotelnik (WBC + IBF Light Welterweight title fight)

Tavoris Cloud v Glen Johnson (IBF Light Heavyweight title fight)

Cory Spinks v Cornelius Bundrage (IBF Light Middleweight title fight)

Of those 3 fights we only saw 1 champion officially lose (Spinks was stopped in the 5^th round) despite many feeling that Kotelnik had done enough to take away Alexander's titles.

In Japan we have:

Hozumi Hasegawa v Jhonny Gonzalez (WBC Featherweight title fight)

Toshiaki Nishioka v Mauricio Javier Munoz (WBC Super Bantamweight title fight)

Takahiro Ao v Humberto Mauro Gutierrez (WBC Super Featherweight title fight)

For those not familiar with the champions he's a little bit on each of them.

Hasegawa (29-3, 12KO's) is 30 years old and after losing 2 of his first 5 fights went unbeaten for almost 9 years. His most recent loss came at the hands of Fernando Montiel (LTKO4), the first and only time Hasegawa has been stopped. The loss to Montiel ended Hasegawa's reign as WBC Bantamweight champion that started back in April 2005 that started when Hasegawa defeated Veeraphol Sahaprom. He has fought just once since losing to Montiel last April and beat Juan Carlos Burgos for the vacant WBC Featherweight title.

A skilled fighter the Southpaw doesn't have the fight changing power of some others in the division (Juan Manuel Lopez, Yuriorkis Gamboa and Mickey Garcia) though is one of the truly skilled fighters who moves and punches brilliantly.

Nishioka (37-4-3, 23KO's) is 34 years old and like Hasegawa he is a southpaw. Nishioka turned professional in 1994 and suffered a KO loss in his second bout, after 8 fights he was 6-2 which would extend to 11-2-1, since then all the blots on his record have come to Veeraphol Sahaprom. Nishioka and Sahaprom met 4 times (in 2000, 2001, 20003 and 2004) with Sahaprom winning the 1^st and 4^th meeting with the middle two being draws. Since the 2004 loss though Nishioka has been on a solid run of victories since then with 14 straight wins 8 of those by stoppage. Included in those wins were decisions over Napapol Sor Rungvisa and Rendall Munroe and stoppages over Genaro Garcia, Jhonny Gonzalez, Ivan Hernandez and Balweg Bangoyan.

Nishioka isn't particularly fast with either his hands or his feet though he is very technically solid, he doesn't waste much when he throws. Though it's really his power that stands out, he's not a monster hitter by any stretch of the imagination though what he is is a very solid hitter, he hits hard, he hits clean and he hits well. He showed against Munroe that he can break down hard working fighters. He can sometimes start slowly and was dropped against Gonzalez, though when he gets going he's simply brilliant and to beat him you need to keep him out of his rhythm. If he lands with a clean accurate shot it can well mean goodnight.

Ao (29-2-1, 9KO's) is the baby amongst the trio at just 26 years old. The blots in Ao's record have all come to good fighters with a draw against Hiroyuki Enoki in 2008 and a loss to Oscar Larios the same year. He has also lost to Elios Rojas. Ao does hold several notable wins though including victory in a rematch with Larios, a stoppage over Whyber Garcia and most recently a decision over Vitali Tajbert in November of last year. Ao like the other 2 fighters is a southpaw and much less well known. Currently ranked by Boxrec.com as the 3^rd best Super Featherweight in the world he relies on his skills rather than power though faces the dangerous Humberto Mauro Gutierrez. Guitierrez has lost to Tajbert a year prior to Ao's win.

Although I'd favour all 3 of the Japanese fighters to win (though the fights should be relatively fun to watch) the matches really aren't walk overs.

Like Sending Lambs to the slaughter, the problem with a padded record

Some of my7 recent posts have been about “fake records” and more specifically that of Dzmitry Lubachkin who suffered the first loss of his career last night and now falls to 18-1 (17). Lubachkin had fought a combined 29 rounds, facing 13 fighters making their debut and had never faced a fighter with a winning record. Last night he faced Selcuk Aydin who moved to 21-0 (16) in what I'm assuming was signed as an April fool but somehow managed to get made.

Tonight though we get a WBO Cruiserweight title with the somewhat “padded” record of Ran Nakash who is 25-0 (18) challenging the very good Marco Huck who is 31-1 (23).Huck was probably lucky to have gotten the win in his last fight when he scored a controversial decision again Denis Lebedev though is still a good fighter. When Italian Giacobbe Fragomeni pulled out of the fight with Huck Nakash took the fight on short(ish) notice and dropped out of a fight with former world title contender Bobby Gunn.

Nakash's record isn't as padded as that of Lubachkin though is hardly a record that is worth of a world title fight, even at the short notice he was given. A quick look at Nakash's record and we get the following stats: (by winning or losing record, those records must be more than ½ of that result)

5 (20%) of Nakash's opponents have been debutants

8 (32 %) of Nakash's opponents have had winning records

8 (32%) of Nakash's opponents have had losing records

9 (36%) of Nakash's opponents had never won a fight

Only 7 (28%) of Nakash's opponents had double digit wins

The combined record of all his opponents is 138-149-12

Nakash's impressive looking 72% KO rate shows he has boxed just 102 professional rounds, a little over 4 rounds a fight and has only gone 10 rounds twice. He has scored 4 7^th round KO's and no KO's later than that. So from his 6 longest fights we get 48 of his career rounds.

Nakash is 32 and stands at just 5'10 tiny for a Cruiserweight (Huck by comparison is 26 and 6'1'') for comparison on records:

0 (0%) of Huck's opponents have been debutants

25 (78.125%) of Huck's opponents have had winning records

7 (21.875%) of Huck's opponents have had losing records

2 (6.25%) of Huck's opponents had never won a fight

20 (62.5%) of Hucks opponents had double digit wins

The combined record of all his opponents is 488-127-18

Huck's record shows an equally impressive KO rate of 71.88% and he has had 199 rounds as a professional, a little over 6.2 rounds a fight. He has gone 12 rounds several times as well.

Nakash maybe the best opponent Huck's team could get at the short notice though is not a spectacular name or as good as his record indicates. I've previewed the fight if you want to read more on the actual fight.

Nakash is however, rather good at Krav Maga and more can be read about Nakash here:
http://www.rannakash.com/