We're a peculiar lot us boxing fans...

...if you visit any boxing forum in the world you are almost certainly going to run into a number of "fan types" who are more fans of a certain fighter (or fighters) than they are of the sport. Whilst it's not a bad thing to be a fan of a fighter by any means (we all have our favourites) the fact they seem to care more about their fighter than the rest of the sport concerns me.

Boxing lives on it's "star attractions" the big names such as Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. Sadly over the past few years the number of star attractions has dwindled to only a handful of names a drastic difference to the 1990's when we had Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Oscar De La Hoya, Felix Trinidad, Roy Jones Jr, Julio Cesar Chavez Sr, Lennox Lewis, Prince Naseem Hamed and Sugar Shane Mosley to name just a few.

This is where the issue lies, the fans of fighters are almost cultist in their beliefs. For example Pacquiao fans are Pacquiao fans first, boxing fans second (if at all), when Pacquiao retires those fans will, on the vast part, retire with him. Likewise Mayweather fans will stop watching when Mayweather eventually turns his back on the sport. Then what?

The people watching our sport on an annual basis in the US is about to shrink, massively. When Mayweather and Pacquiao hang up their gloves their isn't likely to be someone ready to step into their shoes. Of course there is Canelo Alvarez who is being primed to take over their role but yet is completely unproven at Pay-Per View level, ditto Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

Sadly when the fan base shrinks the TV slots will shrink, the money for fighters will become more limited and the opportunity for new break out fighters will diminish. Thankfully however we, as fans can do things to stop the sport from vanishing, we need to stick together. We need to tell the networks what we want, we need to help them. Rather than allowing us to force feed us rubbish (like the proposed Alvarez v Freitas fight) we need to stand up and demand things like Maidana v Matthysse, fights that will turn a sports fan into a boxing fan. We need to give exposure to unknown fighters, tell everyone about the hottest prospect you saw at the weekend, share the vicious knockouts and do all you can to get people watching our sport!

Boxing fans unite!

Fight of the year? More like Year of the Fights

2011 has been a treat for boxing fans, and seriously you may have seen some stinkers, or felt slightly ripped off about certain things (Wladimir Klitschko v David Haye for example, or the judging in a number of notable fights) but you'll almost certainly have seen some amazing fights. Part way through the year there was a thread on the amazing Budweiser Boxing forum that started talking about the best fights of 2011...I took the thread a bit further than a short list and did more of a...long list...and since then have added more fights, and here is the long list for 2011's fight of the year:

Acosta v Rios
Arce v Vazquez Jr
Berto v Ortiz
Concepcion v Marquez
Lee v McEwan
Lopez v Salido
Maidana v Morales
Odom v Omotoso
Robles v Silva
Rodriguez v Wolak
Berto v Zaveck
Ceda v Narvaez
DeMarco v Sanchez
Murat v Campillo II
Froch v Johnson
Iwasa v Yamanaka
Lujan v Melligen
Mitchell v Murray
Macklin v Sturm
Appleby v Walsh
Aaron v Webb
Diaz v Kennedy
Miranda v Viloria
Chavez Jr v Zbik
Geale v Sylvester
Guerrero v Katsidis
Jamoye v McDonnell
John v Yordan
Lopez v Lundy
Robinson v Sexton I
Chisora v Fury
Conyers v De La Rosa
Antillion v Rios
Crolla v Watson
Gonzalez v Sierra
Gutierrez v Palacios
Hovhannisyan v Marquez
Hernandez v Keb Baas
Lara v Molina
Robinson v Sexton II
Barrett v Tua II
Coleman v Paris
Cotto v Mayorga
Arce v Nongqayi II
Frankel v Molina
Gomez v Granados
Huck v Nakash
Huerta v Martin
Lemieux v Rubio
Martirosyan v Roman 
Firtha v Fury
Hasegawa v Gonzalez
Cleverly v Bellew
Molitor v Gauthier
Theron v Cote
Angulo v Kirkland
Aspera v Silvestri
Vincente v Gonzalez
Porpramook v Yaegashi
Arce v Angkotta II
Helenius v Chisora
Martinez v Castaneda
Murray v Sturm
Murray v Rios

If you've missed any of these, make you sure you try to catch them, they are full of action, bombs and in some cases a fair bit of controversy. If you are a fight fan you need to have watched at least half of these!

Big night? Oh yeah, a real big night! And the UK...and the US

We've already looked at how big Saturday is in Germany but it's not all for the Germans both the UK and the US have a great day in store. The UK has a number of fascinating fights, which is headlined by a European Lightweight title fight. Then of course we are off to one of the craziest nights in US boxing this year.

Firstly the UK fight sees Gavin "The Rock" Rees (35-1, 16) a former WBA Light Welterweight champion defending the European Lightweight title against "Dirty" Derry Matthews (29-5, 15). Whilst I personally favour Rees to win Matthews has been on a sensational run as of late and has won 8 of his last 9 (including out pointing both Scott Lawton and Choi Tseveenpurev). Both men are flawed but they are both hugely entertaining and well worth a watch.

In the US it's a matter of "where do we start?"
Lets start with Atlantic City and with the deep card headlined by Middleweight champion Sergio Gabriel Martinez (47-2-2, 26) facing off against unbeaten British fighter "Dazzling" Darren Barker (23-0, 14). In the past I've been critical of Barker who has been "guilty" of talking himself up though it's that same talking, as well as a lack of challenger for Martinez and good management from Matchroom Sports that have helped to land Barker the biggest chance of his professional career. Martinez is a huge favourite whilst Barker is being given the chance to really put himself on the boxing map.

The same card has an exciting rematch between Andy Lee (26-1, 19) and Brian Vera (19-5, 12). Vera previously stopped Lee to give the Irishman his first professional loss, and now a few fights on Lee attempts to avenge it. The undercard includes a number of prospects including Isaac Chilemba, Alex Perez, Sean Monaghan, Steve Martinez, Magomed Abdusalamov (a heavyweight power puncher) and J'Leon Love.

At the same sort of time Las Vegas has an equally interesting card with a number of good looking fights. The headline act there is a WBC Super Bantamweight title bout in which under-rated Japanese fighter Toshiaki Nishioka (38-4-3, 24) defends his title against the legendary Rafael Marquez (40-6, 36). I'm favouring Nishioka here but it should be both technical, exciting and entertaining. Whilst both men are highly skilled they are also powerful and fun.
The same card also brings to America the ultra talented Roman "El Chocolatito" Gonzalez (29-0, 24) of Nicaragua who defends his WBA Light Flyweight title against Omar Soto (22-7-2, 15). I'd expect Gonzalez to defend his title with relative ease, though hopefully it'll be a good enough fight to help alert the boxing world to Gonzalez.
This same card also includes some top unbeaten fighters including the excellent Christopher Martin and Yoshihiro Kamegai.

Where ever you turn you are promised some amazing fights.

Big night? Oh yeah, a real big night! Firstly Germany

When we think of big nights in boxing we generally seem to talk about 1 big fight. For example this year we've had "big nights" including Wladimir Klitschko v David Haye, Shane Mosley v Manny Pacquiao and most recently Floyd Mayweather v Victor Ortiz. The problem with these being regarded as "big nights" is that we suffer big time if the main fight end up as a bit of a flop and sadly all 3 have. This coming Saturday however is that other kind of "big night", the one we simply can't lose on thanks to quality fights happening literally everywhere you look.

If we turn our attention to Germany first we have an enthralling card, just look at the highlights below:
Steve Cunningham v Yoan Pablo Hernandez (IBF Cruiserweight title)
Grzegorz Proksa v Sebastian Sylvester (European Middleweight title)
Karo Murat v Gabriel Campillo (IBF Light Heavyweight Eliminator)
The card also features Dustin Dirks and Edmund Gerber. Can we just say that this is a great card before breaking down the actual matches?

Cunninham v Hernandez is a real toss up for me. Over the last 5 years Cunningham has been one of the premier Cruiserweights, he's beaten the likes of Krzysztof Wlodarczyk, Marco Huck, Wayne Braithwaite and Troy Ross whilst suffering to, pretty controversial losses to Wlodarczyk and Tomasz Adamek. Hernandez however has been one of the emerging talents of the division with size, power, skill and youth all coming together. The 26 year old originally of Cuba is a 6'4" southpaw who is taking his first step up since suffering a reverse to Wayne Braithwaite back in 2008 and Hernandez has certainly improved since then. This bout is a genuine toss up.

Proska v Sylvester is another toss up, though I've got to favour the Pole who is coming into the bout on the back of 10 straight early wins. Whilst Sylvester is a clever fighter his work rate (or rather lack of) can be costly, and in fact it was with his recent loss to Daniel Geale. Although Proska at 5'8" is tiny for a middleweight he's actually taller than the former IBF world champion and this bout could well be the most entertaining of the night. Sylvester is fighting for his career whilst Proska is fighting to keep his unbeaten record.

I the other fight of the card (Murat v Campillo) I think we have the "second chance" saloon for both men. Campillo is arguably the most under-rated fighter in the Light Heavyweight division, a slippery, skilled, intelligent fighter who was completely robbed of his WBA title in January  2010 by Beibut Shumenov. Murat is a good fighter, and already holds a controversial win over Campillo (a majority decision back in 2008) but he's never really been able to take that leap into the next level. I fancy this one to be controversial probably with Murat winning another hotly contested decision.

We shall be looking at the other noteworthy cards over the following few days just to show you how great Saturday is going to be!

I love this sport...

...I honestly do, I mean that. Whether we're talking about the good times, the bad times, the happy times or the sad times I love this great sport of ours. It's the truest sport. No fighter can lie for long in this sport and get away with it. Sadly though fighters can lie and get lucky a time or two.

Whilst Felix Sturm won what I felt was a close decision against Matthew Macklin (in what was genuinely a fantastic fight full of action) in a fight that could genuinely have gone either way, neither fighter lied. They both put it on the line in a fantastic fight. Tonight though one man lied and got very lucky. Devon Alexander "The lucky" was out landed, out punched, out thrown and dropped against exciting Argentine Lucas Matthyse. I had the fight clearly to Matthyse, so did many others on Fightjudge and a number of forums, even the commentators seemed to have felt Matthyse had won the fight. Odd I actually believe all 3 judges must have felt Matthyse won, yet 2 of the 3 judges scored the fight to Alexander. Was it the crowd who swayed their views? Was it the fact that Don King was in charge of the event? Was it that St Charles, where the fight was held, was just down the road from St Louis, the home town of Alexander? Was it because Alexander is an American?

I'm not sure what it was but seriously, Alexander did not deserve to win that fight. Even the most blinkered of fans cannot possibly have seen the fight being a win for Alexander. Sadly as much as I love boxing, I hate the garbage that comes with it. These sorts of decisions aren't just bad, they sickening. It's no wonder our great sport is falling further and further into the depths of "nobody cares". No one will be brought into our great sport watching decisions like I saw in St Charles tonight. In fact people like myself may even turn away from the sport, it's disgusting things like this that will see people walk away for good.

The crowds in the US have been dropping and the reason isn't that the US have no good fighters, instead it's because we know that the sport is somewhat fishy. Fighters like Tavoris Cloud (who was on the same card), Andre Ward, Steve Cunningham, Timothy Bradley and Brandon Rios are all very talented US fighters and if they are marketed well the people will come, they do not need their names tarnishing with the despicable decisions we've seen.

Argentina...the new hot bed?

It's amazing to think that of all the countries in the world Argentina is one of the dominant forces in world boxing. The country is current tied in 4th place for most amount of "champions" (they have 5 titles, the same as Germany and UK). The current champions are:
Sergio Martinez (Ring Middleweight)
Marcos Maidana (WBA "interim" Light Welterweight)
Jonathan Barros (WBA Featherweight)
Omar Andres Narvaez (WBO Super Flyweight)
Juan Carlos Reveco (WBA "interim" Flyweight)

Last night Reveco added his name to this list by defeating Jean Piero Perez with a vicious body shot (the write up of the fight can be read here) and tonight we will see Narvaez facing off against the pretty unknown William Urina. In all honesty a loss for Narvaez is almost unthinkable (he's a huge 1/33 favourite) though it's the 3rd fight for Narvaez this year showing that the veteran is staying active and keeping the ring rust off.

The future is a good one though at the moment Argentina seem to be one of the rising forces in the sport ob Boxing.

Back to what we were made for...silly boxrec stuff

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a fighter called Emerson Chasing Bear who I thought had an amazing name, but I've found someone with an even better one now. "Prince Octopus Dzanie", yes you read that right, Prince Octopus!

 Despite seeing prince Octopus and finding that brilliant this struck me as more bizarre. Look at the year of birth and then the guys debut fight. It says he fought BEFORE being conceived! What a fighter, fighting from the testes of his father (this mistake has since been corrected)

When we heard Bernard Hopkins set new record for being the oldest champion, we had to find out who was the oldest fighter on the Boxrec system. What no one expected to find was a man this old! (again this mistake has since been corrected).

More from Small Pith and some Prospects

My friend Small Pith returns with another one of his bizarre blogs. I love Small, honestly I do, but I think the guy has...problems. He was hugely behind Jean Pascal this past weekend, he said he had a £500 bet on Pascal by stoppage, though I've yet to see his betting slip. Now he's unleashed a fury at Hopkins, claiming Joe Bugner is the real record holder for oldest champion. Whilst I do write for and administer the site the writers have been given free reign to literally write anything they want, I don't censor what they write on the site so take his views...as those of a crazyman.

What I do have complete control over is this site, and a prospect site. It's the prospect site that actually has taken my attention this past week. It's one of the more interesting sides of the sport though one a lot of people don't really pay attention to until prospects become contenders and it's a real shame. This past week I've looked at 3 different prospects already and they are all really exciting youngsters:

Firstly one Daniel “Bad Boy” Rosas, a fighter who seem destined for greatness and has had a tough start to his career. The piece on Rosas can be read here:

Secondly was the youngest prospect I could find. 16 year old Robert Manzanarez, a fighter who made his debut at just 15 years old and is now unbeaten in 10 fights. The piece on Manzanarez is here.

Most recently was a piece on a Nicaraguan some are already declaring a future world champion. Carlos Buitrago, a 19 year old who is well on his way forward. The piece on Buitrago can be read here

There will be more fighters going on that site over the coming weeks, so stay tuned there.

Hopkins and Jones old men on a different spectrum

Legendary fighters fighting well beyond their “prime” is something that has always happened. We all remember Muhammad Ali taking those unnecessary fights with the likes of Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick, Mike Tyson taking fights with Danny Williams and Kevin McBride. The most recent example of a great fighter with a legendary name being beaten up by a younger fighter is Roy Jones Jr who was almost killed in a Russian ring this past weekend when he faced Denis Lebedev.

Although fighters fighting on well beyond their primes is nothing new fighters like Roy Jones and Evander Holyfield need to be taken away from the boxing ring. Despite them both having serious issues regarding finance they need to find some other way to make money. Roy Jones Jr has got other avenues, at the moment he's a promoter and he does work for HBO. Although he apparently owes a large sum to the IRS having his brains splattered across a Russian ring won't help anyone at all.

Rather amazingly on the same day the Roy Jones Jr was knocked senseless and left face first in a ring in Moscow Bernard Hopkins became the oldest professional champion (regarded by the WBA/WBC/WBO/IBF). Hopkins shows what a fighter can do with just the old skool tricks, he wasn't the biggest, the strongest or the fastest, though he was a fighter who could out think his opponents. Unlike Jones who had all the natural talent a fighter could wish for, Hopkins has had to do things the hard-way and as a result time hasn't take the toll it has on Jones. The once lightning reflexes of Jones have evaporated whilst Hopkins, who never relied on natural gifts has seen his experience and skills come from hard graft and have seen him secure his name in the record books for another great achievement.

How long can Bernard Hopkins go on for? I'm not sure, but I'll be tuning in to see just how long Bernard can remain at the top.

The night the Light Flyweight division changed

In a bizarre night of boxing in which 3 rematches took place for titles in the Light Flyweight division and a WBO minimumweight title bout we crowned 3 NEW world champions.

 Firstly in Mexico the WBC Light Flyweight title changed hands as Adrian "El Confessor" Hernandez stopped Gilberto Keb Baas. These two met a few years ago with Hernandez doing the job in 4 rounds. The bout was an enthralling bout through out with the 25 year old Hernandez rising to the task and Keb Baas' corner stopping the bout between the 10th and 11th round. Hernandez does look like one who could be very exciting in the future.

 Also in Mexico the WBO Light Flyweight title changed hands as Jesus Geles was stopped in 4 rounds by Ramon Hirales Garcia. These two had fought in February in a "WBO Interim unification" bout (I kid you not) with Geles taking a decision in his native Mexico. On that card we also had WBO Minimumweight champion Raul Garcia stopping Filipino challenger Rommel Asenjo in 3 rounds to stop the rise of the man known as "My little assassin".

 In an horrifically scored and horrifically refereed bout in Argentina we saw 40 year old Luis Alberto Lazarte lose his IBF Light Flyweight title to Ulises Solis. These two men had met in December of last year and Lazarte, with 2 point deductions had managed to score a draw in a bout he could have been disqualified in a number of times. This time it was Solis who was deducted a point in a bout he seemed to win by a wide margin though the judges cards read 116-112 to Solis
 114-113 to Lazarte 115-112 to Solis. How Lazarte wasn't deducted points or kicked out was mystery, his most potent blows were low or behind the head.

 The night has seen a total shift in the Light Flyweight division with 3 new title holders, with Mexicans taking titles away from an Argentinian and a Colombian. The current list of all the world champions in the sport can be found here

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?

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/

When a 20-0 (15) fighter v an 18-0 (17) fighter is a bad fight

Sometimes in boxing you look too much at raw numbers and decide that a fight will be good or bad just on that. One such case is taking place on April 1^st when Selcuk Aydin 20-0 (15) faces Dzmitry Lubachkin 18-0 (17). Should be good right? 2 Unbeaten, hard hitting punchers facing off in a fight that should mean a lot to both men, however it's not that simple.

Aydin, although lucky to defeat Canada based Romanian Jo Jo Dan last year is the WBC #1 contender, he holds the “Silver title” and is owed a fight with Andre Berto. In fact Aydin has every right to feel aggrieved that Victor Ortiz is next up for Berto in a HBO decided clash. Aydin is currently ranked #15 by Boxrec.com and #9 by the IBO, although not an elite fighter he's a good one, a powerful one and one that can really hurt his opponents. Although he has stamina issues (as shown against Dan) and lacks the technical skills and speed to be world class he's a very good fighter. A good fighter, but not a great fighter. Aydins last 7 wins have come against solid looking opponents with decent records. Jo Jo Dan was 26-0, Jackson Osei Bonsu was 30-2, Said Ouali was 25-2, Luis Hernandez was 23-2, Marat Khuzeev was 17-3-1, Lucky Lewele 25-4 and Farhad Bakirov 24-2-2. Those 7 opponents gave Aydin 56 rounds combined.

Lubachkin is someone we don't know much about. Back in February I actually wrote about him for this very blog. So lets just copy the raw numbers from that:

He has faced 13 debutants
He has never faced a fighter who was better than 1-1-1 (his 14^th opponent- Aliaksandr Kuryanovich)
His opponents have a combined 1 win amongst them
The combined record of his 18 opponents have a record of 1-6-2

Now some more additional facts. Lubachkin has had 29 rounds recorded as a professional (Aydin has had 33 rounds in his 3 fights). Of those 29 rounds 10 came against debutant Siarhei Shoba in Lubachkin's 5^th professional fight, the only one to have gone the distance. 4 of Lubachkin's first 6 fights haven't been fully recorded on boxrec.com, the site aren't sure of which round the fights were won in. Of the completely recorded fights on his record only Iliya Koltun has managed go more than 2 rounds(not including Shoba) with 9 fighters failing to make the 2^nd round.

Aydin has more fights than the combined total of Lubachkin's opponents, he has more than twice as many rounds and the only thing Lubachkin has more of are KO's. On paper Lubachkin is the power puncher but when he faces Aydin it'll be obvious that the padded record will do the Belarussian no favours. Expect Aydin to stop Lubachkin whenever he wants.

Note-Lubachkin is a Light Middleweight whilst Aydin has been fighting at Welterweight, regardless Aydin will win with ease. The Turkish fighter is a big Welterweight and will only be giving away around an inch in height.

I give you Mr Paul Smith, part time boxer, part time English teacher

Sometimes as a writer it's fun to communicate with people that you write about. I've often enjoyed the brilliance of Twitter for such activities, of course my Ringnews24 piece “Audley Harrison The Mighty Twitter Warrior” is one of the most fun and amusing pieces I've done. Though sometimes you realise your opinion on someone flips 180 after talking to them for a while. They go from being someone you were behind to someone you want to see fail. A recent series of conversations with British boxer Paul Smith has been one of those cases.

Smith, from Liverpool, has a record of 29-2 (15) and I'd actually been behind him from when I first heard about him. His appearance on “The Contender” was short lived though he had shown his heart and was exciting, it further concreted my feelings that he was one to keep an eye on. Brave, hard working and the type of fighter that is genuinely good to watch. Though his actions after a fight last year in which his brother took a controversial decision against Scottish fighter John Simpson raised some questions about him. He acted like a bit of a tit to be frank. Though I gave him a pass, his brother had just won the biggest fight of his career in front of a pro-Scottish crowd and it was a reason to be emotional. My support was right behind him when he faced James DeGale, I actually backed him on all the PL's I was a part of and really wanted him to shut DeGale up. He had talked the talk going into the fight, seemed confident and was far more experienced than DeGale. Then it became obvious that he didn't deserve to be in the ring with DeGale. Smith took a 29-1 record into that fight against the 8-0 DeGale, it was a shock however that DeGale just abused him in the ring. It wasn't that DeGale was just quicker and more skilled, but he was stronger, his shots left more of an effect. It was Smith that was made to look like the rank novice.

Since the loss to DeGale Smith has been out of the ring, that's 3 months with out a fight and with none lined up we're unsure when he will be making a return. Maybe DeGale did more than just beat him in the ring but broke his fighting spirit. Maybe it was just a beating but quite possibly more. Smith was toyed with in front of his own fans in Liverpool and it must have been embarrassing to be handled so easily by a novice pro.

When asked recently by Ringnews24.com over twitter as to whether he would want to do an interview he showed the nasty arrogant side, the side that had been shown in Glasgow when his his brother “robbed” John Simpson. He failed to actually say “no” and instead accused the sites admin of being a drunk before going on to give “English lessons” over twitter, correcting grammar, which actually went down to pointing out a space before a comma is wrong. We can see from the twitter conversation excerpts below just silly Paul's lessons got:

“you don't leave spaces before commas , like that. Also CAPITALS help. Yet another whopper with a laptop posing as a writer.”

-We can see the irony here, no capital to start the sentence whilst capitals appear as a point of emphasis in the middle of a sentence. Mr. Smith, this isn't correct, you should know this.

“If you think your grammar is correct, and you expect people to read your site/articles then you're madder than I first thought!”

-Again pointing out grammar errors over twitter seems pointless but lets see his 3^rd point regardless.

“drink & debate don't mix. Especially when you expect people to take your opinion seriously! We'll see come April 27th. And NEW!”

-Again the irony of capitals Mr. Smith. It should be a capital “D” for “drink”, the “And” is a conjunction so there is no need for the full stop or the capital and “NEW!” should be “new!”. See this is easy.

But hey lets carry on this lesson, I'm starting to feel intelligent correcting someone else grammar.

“advertising on what exactly? Vie got more followers than that site itself! It's hardly popular. Like I said, wannabe writers.”

Again Mr. Smith, come on, get your capitals right. Also what is “Vie”? You may indeed have more followers than a site though that would probably come down to you being more famous than a fledgling site. Is twitter a popularity contest?

“as for PR if that's kidding the bollocks off loyal fans and sugar coating things then yes, it's not my strong point.”

Again missing the capital. Though this was in reply to his reaction when asked about an interview in which he was going to be able to express his opinion and tell boxing fans what he's been up to since the loss to DeGale and what fans were to expect from his return. If he honestly feels that's sugar coating, then it's a shame that he's taken so many to the head that he's showing signs of brain damage or lack of comprehension skills.

Anyway with this done I'd like to wish John Simpson all the best in knocking Stephen Smith out on April 27 live on Sky Sports 1. It's time the record was set straight and this time with out the controversial decision that marred their first fight. Better yet, like when DeGale beat Paul, this will be in front of more Liverpudlians at the Olympia.

As is obvious the above is all opinion and I'm not an actual doctor. I have the opinion that if someone thinks an interview is "sugar coating" then their is something wrong with them. I am entitled to such an opinion, just like someone is entitled to the opinion that I am a "wanker", that the Ringnews24.com staff member was a "drunk".

EDIT:
A new post by Mr. Smith
"Gotta love when people print lies about you too and try and twist the truth. More to the point, you gotta love libel cases!"

He can try the libel case but I never actually lied, again it's a statement of "opinion", if he doesn't understand this then thats his problem, not mine. Though thank you paul for the free publicity. As are his claims of "drunk" and "wanker", obviously Mr. Smith loves irony.


Edit part 2:
Paul recently tweeted:
" My opinion is that God exists, Diana was murdered and Aliens exist - but that doesn't make them FACTS. Your Scott is a liar..."

Now again this is a "fair comment", this doesn't make him a liar, and neither does my opinion that if he doesn't understand being asked to do an interview isn't sugar coating things. Maybe I will change my opinion to him actually showing signs of that damage, rather than just insulting his intelligence. Anyone who believes that Diana was murdered is a bit weird anyway...;-)

Final edit:
I recently found an article with a quote from Smith in which he called James DeGale an idiot, seems rather apt that he's happy to throw around insults but if others do it he threatens legal action with no foot to stand on. Also my preview on Stephen Smith v Jon Simpson II is now on hubpages.

An Argentine with no power? :-O

This coming Saturday sees everyone's favourite light punching Argentinian Light Welterweight fighting for the 42^nd time in a career spanning back over 8 years. That's right Cesar Rene Cuenca, the man nicknamed “El Distinto” returns to the ring after 7 months out. Cuenca's record looks impressive at 39-0-0-2 though you look deeper and you notice he's fought a lot of nobodies, in fact he's fought a lot of nobodies several times. His most impressive facet though is his KO success, he has scored just 1 KO in his 39 results (he's had 2 No Contests due to head clashes).

Cuenca, currently the #3 ranked Argentinian at the weight according to Boxrec.com is the WBO #2 and the WBC #10 ranked fighter and his up coming fight comes against a giant test in the form of Juan Jose Dias . Dias has the impressive record of 11-10-4 (2) and has only been stopped once in his career so it's fair to assume that he should be going the distance against Cuenca.

Although Cuenca has faced some moderate opponents with semi-decent records the problem is that their records are just generally more padded than Cuenca who really shouldn't have a top 15 ranking with any body. Hopefully the light punching Argentinian ends up being pushed into a fight with one of his fellow countrymen who hit much harder (Marcos Maidana or Lucas Matthysse would be nice) though sadly theirs nothing in it for them when they have title aspirations compared with Cuenca's somewhat yellow streak.

If you love Paulie Malignaggi you'll love Cesar Cuenca!

Audley Harrison-Twitter Warrior!

A recent newspaper reported Audley Harrison claiming he would “prove doubters wrong”, and now, the 39 year old Harrison, seems to be on the warpath. Yes this is the same A-Farce we all love to hate, the problem is that his war path isn't on the heavyweight division but instead on the world of Twitter where Audley, presumably feeling safe is happy to swing his shots. He seems to throw more verbal jabs over the site than he did at David Haye.

The ever confident Gold Medal winner has come out with some of those lines you know only he could ever come out with. When asked whether or not he still believes he'll be a world champion he replied with “Long way, but a few good wins and I'm back in the huntRT”. A possible early contender for under-statement of the year. “:Long way”? I'm nearer having a threesome with Kelly Brook and Briana Frost than Audley is from ever winning a world title. A “few good wins”? Has Audley ever actually had what we'd consider a good win? His best victories are against British standard heavyweights in Williams and Sprott, both of whom have already beaten him anyway. Although a lot of people want to downplay the Klitschko's they spar with Sprott and Vitali famously beat Williams senseless well before Audley faced him. If the A-Farce wants a good win what about guys like Povetkin? Arreola? Chagaev? The talk is that he will face a British fighter, in fact he's called out Tyson Fury and Dereck Chisora, more British level fighters.

The Olympic Gold Medal winner has also recently come out with this. “Listen, all the big talking wanabee bad boys on here, don't watch me. I'm all good. My life is gravy, no complaints. Can you say the same ?” He doesn't seem to have any idea most fight fans watch him to see him layed out on the canvas all over again and hopefully retire. We thought Danny Williams would have embarrassed him into retirement, then we were sure Michael Sprott had done the job, then hoped Martin Rogan had managed it. We've realised he's not going away until someone literally gives him brain damage, sadly I'm not to sure he'd realise it. In a fair honest retort:

“Listen, you big talking boxing wannabee bad boy, don't call yourself a fighter when your not willing to fight. My life is pretty good, can't complain and I'm sure many others can say the same”.

When a “fan” asked “For your fans, why should we still follow you?” Audley retorted with “If your a fan, I don't need to answer that” almost expecting the blind followers to keep following him. It was as if the blind man expects people to be as stupid as he himself seems. Is it impossible for poor Audley to realise weren't all delusional fools? He's giving people no reason, in or out of the ring, to remain fans. He needs to grow up, this is a man who's been a pro for 10 years but has done nothing of note.

A protective fan was kind enough to offer this “Have you got keyboard gangsters on your case?? Bless the clueless bastards.” Sadly the “clueless bastards” are the those following the A-Farce despite the let down, the talk and the repeated failure. Though as Audley said “A wise man once said ' if they are writing about you, they are thinking about you, if they are thinking about you, they are dreaming about you' can u imagine :)” can you imagine some of the things I must be dreaming about? A nude Marco Antonio Periban for a start (actually...). Shame I find it hard to dream and write things because, believe it or not, I get paid! Well done Audley, I'll mis-quote a very wise man myself “I write, therefore I am” (long live Descartes).

Sorry for the language with this one but....well it's Audley's fault “When my day comes to shit, I mean quit :) I promise to let u know”. Shame he's been shit for the past decade and he's certainly let us know about it, repeatedly. If he quit I'd rather he just faded off into obscurity rather than announced it to the world. He's resorted to throwing personal insults “I'm joking butt head” though this is nothing of a surprise, he needs to throw something, sure as hell didn't throw anything at David Haye in November.

Before leaving Audley alone (I didn't want to catch whatever mental problem he has) I saw this gem. “Fact: I don't give a flying f..k what people say. Fact: I fought Michael Sprout for 8 rounds with one ARM, do you not think I would have found a way to come back: fact: I should of got asking out on a stretcher, its for the world title”. Now I understand the start of that. Yes yes he fought a 35 year old journeyman who had gone 2-4 in his last 6 one handed, well we say fought he didn't really fight but that's a technicality. Though the second part I have no idea about, is he saying he should have had to go out on a stretcher against Haye? If so it's probably a shame the referee did save his life.

Anyway thank you Mr Harrison. Been nice to vent after Man United's garbage first half, not quite as bad as your beloved Arsenals though I guess. Stay on Twitter, your more active on there than you ever were in the ring.

Old men tussle

Some fighters just don't know when to call it a day one such man is former world heavyweight title holder Oliver McCall. The Atomic Bull, now a month shy of turning 46, and 14 years since he lost the WBC title to Lennox Lewis in that infamous bout that saw him break mentally in front of the worlds eyes is appearing once again in the ring. On Friday night Oliver McCall will face the once beaten Cedric Boswell in a fight for the vacant NABA Heavyweight title at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood. Boswell (33-1) is himself 41 and was originally scheduled to face Bert Cooper, who like McCall is 45.

Whilst I personally have nothing against older fighters carrying on if they are either fighting completely meaningless fights, for example those that were had by Hassan Chitsaz against relative nobodies. The fighters that are “older” and still able to compete with the best are also fine, fighters like Bernard Hopkins, Vitali Klitschko and fighters of a similar ilk are completely fine, they take care of themselves and also don't take a great deal of damage in the ring. Though when 2 fighters are getting US TV exposure with a combined age of 86 and are neither going places nor particularly worth watching I can't really see the point of it all.

The “old” heavyweights appear to be out in force this year though with Evander Holyfield, Ray Austin, Antonio Tarver, James Toney, Hasim Rahman, Shannon Briggs, Lance Whittaker, Rob Calloway and several others all ranked by Boxrec.com in the top 100 American heavyweights. I've written in the past about the lack of American heavyweights who are young and breaking through, it doesn't help that the older guys won't go away. Until something major happens the future looks as bleak as the past has been for the big Americans, those that want to complain the division is dead only need to look at fights like this one.