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!

This weekends title fights

Later today the world of boxing has 3 “world” title bouts. The big name bout is of course the Super 6 Semi Final bout between Andre “Son Of God” Ward and “King” Arthur Abraham in a bout that will decide half of the Super 6 final and the WBA “super” champion at Super Middleweight. The bout is an interesting one and although I favour Ward to take the decision plenty of folks do seem to feel that Abraham’s power could trouble the American. The bout will be shown on Showtime and ARD amongst other channels around the world and the winner will face the winner of Carl Froch and Glen Johnson who fighter in a few weeks time.

My Preview for Rings news 24 can be found here
World Boxing Title Preview take on the fight can be read here
Abraham Profile can be read here
Ward Profile can be read here

The most interesting title bout of the night however sees 22 year old Mexican puncher Hugo Ruiz, who enters with a record of 27-1 (25) facing off against veteran Francisco Arce (the younger brother of WBO Super Bantamweight champion Jorge Arce). Arce will be attempting to join his brother as champion whilst Ruiz will be looking for his biggest win as he defends his WBA “interim” Bantamweight title. Ruiz will be trying to prove that he’s the star some have started to claim he is whilst Arce will be trying to upset the apple cart in what is genuinely and intriguing match up.
World Boxing Title Preview take on the fight can be read here
Hugo Ruiz Profile can be read here
Francisco Arce Profile can be read here

The final title fight of the weekend is probably the least interesting to be frankly honest. It sees the once highly rated Cristian Mijares defending his IBF Super Flyweight title against Nicaraguan Carlos Rueda an almost unknown in the boxing world. Mijares had seen a bout with Raul Martinez cancelled a week or so before the bout and so Mijares found a replacement opponent. Mijares was once a pound-for-pound top 10 fighter though has been showing signs of being on the slide for the past few years and although it would be an upset to see Reuda win it’d say more about how far gone Mijares is rather than how good Rueda is.
World Boxing Title Preview take on the fight can be read here
Cristian Mijares Profile
Carlos Rueda Profile

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.

A new year is fast approaching...so can we avoid somethings?

We know boxing fans don't get the fights they really want, well not that often anyway. 2010 was a year of what could have been, of course Pacquiao v Mayweather, Klitschko v Wlad, Gamboa v Lopez, Huck v Cunningham II, Ward v Bute and any number of other pretty obvious looking fights. As obvious as it is to complain about those not happening, it's a horse that has been flogged to the point of no longer being relevant, in fact we are beating the dead horse to even mention them, however, we don't need to accept crap. 2011 should be OUR (the fans) year!

This year we've had major fights ignored for the likes of:
Haye v Harrison (and over 1/2 a million people paid for this one)
Vitali v Briggs and Sosnowski
Wladamir v Peter II
Adamek v Maddalone
Povetkin v Firtha
Pacquiao v Margarito
Mayweather v Security guards
Huck v Richards, Minto and Godfrey
Lopez v Concepcion

Maybe whats been worse however have been the poor (in some case terrible) decisions made by those in charge of the sport, the judges, the commissions, the awarding bodies et al. Here are some of those examples I'm talking about:
Campillo v Shumenov II-What were the judges watching? (honestly what fight was Patricia Morse Jarman watching? Jerry Roth's score card was questionable too)
Tua v Barrett-Barrett won that and we all know it.
Minto v Huck-How did Minto qualify for a world title fight?
The WBA in general-How they manage to hand out upto 3 titles in some weights is a mystery, though they seem to enjoy it. Can someone please force this to stop?
The WBC V Bradley-Come on WBC GROW UP! If he beats Alexander accept him as your champion, it's only fair.
The IBF-What was their logic behind stripping Alexander for not fighting Mabuza (and instead unifying)?

One thing that does seem like it's about to change is the BBBofC, who although I'm no cheer leader for, I'm incredibly happy to hear they are changing their "accidental headbutt" rule that saw the recent Edwards v Bayaar fight ending in a farce. Though will they force a rematch or just sit on the result as if it was a legitimate stoppage?

Also just a few more quick complaints, can we finally see the end of Joe "I'm bent" Cortez. Yes that would be verging on slander but time and time again he proves he's not on a level. He let Gamboa off with a cheap shot that was very little different to the shot he DQ'd Humberto Soto for a few years ago, like wise he allowed Khan's constant holding with out a warning (but with out allowing any inside work by Maidana), the opposite to what he allowed in the Hopkins v Calzaghe fight. The sooner Cortez is out of the sport the better, much like dodgy officiating and scoring. We need rid of this or our sport will remain a minor sport where it can be "who you know" rather than "what you do" that decides the result.

Anyway hope to see some of you guys next year folks.