It's funny what a loss can "earn" you

In one of Britain's best fights of 2011 John Murray, the popular brawler from Manchester was stopped by former world title challenger Kevin Mitchell. Murray had ran up a record of 31 straight wins prior to that loss and had built a very solid local fan base. Whilst Murray was calling for the bigger fights he had ended up some what stuck in a rot defending either the British title (which he held from 2008-2010) or the European title (which he held for around a year prior to the Mitchell fight).

As a reward for "losing" to Mitchell he's now finally got the big fight he had been asking for, though it's one of the toughest assignments a Lightweight could possibly have, he'll have to travel to America to fight the WBA champion Brandon "Bam Bam" Rios. Rios is one of the most fearsome and heavy handed punchers in the division and has run up an impressive string of victories in recent fights to move his record to 28-0-1 (21). Rios has stopped all but 1 of his last 10 opponents early (the only one he didn't stop was Anthony Peterson who got himself disqualified after repeated low blows) and those wins including stopping the excellent Miguel Acosta and the teak tough Urbano Antillon.

Whilst it might fair to say that a loss has earned Murray a title fight, it may also be fair to suggest that a loss has earned Murray the most painful night of his life. Rios is, in many ways, very similar to Murray, both are in your face and both throw a lot of punches with neither man caring too much if they take 2 to land 1. The differences however are enormous. Rios really has a chin of granite as well as much more power on his shots, he's also craftier than the Englishman and much more able to enforce himself on a high calibre of opponent.

For Murray it may be his big chance, but he also had a big chance against Mitchell just months ago and was beaten at his own game, Rios will do what Mitchell did, just much quicker. Funny how a loss gets you a big chance though isn't it.

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

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?

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.

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.

I keep losing gimme a title fight!

This sports a funny sport. One day you could have lost 7 of your last 9, you could have lost 4 world title fights in those 7 losses, you could be 35 as well, and yet tomorrow you could have made it 7 losses in 10 and be the world champion. Don't ask me how Jose Antonio Aguirre managed to get his recent WBC Light Flyweight title fight and we, as boxing fans need to feel a little bit relieved he's not going to wake up tomorrow as the champion but what were the WBC thinking?

Aguirre,who fell to 35-10-1 challenged Gilberto Keb Baas, now 35-20-4 for the title. Aguirre had some how been ranked #8 by the WBC in a weight class he hadn't made since May 2007 and hadn't scored a win in since August 2006. Not only had he gone 2-7 entering the bout but he'd been fighting at a higher weight class, his wins had come fighters with terrible records (4-5-1 and 8-16-3) and he'd fought only once in 2 years.

Although Keb Baas has a much worse record his recent form has genuinely been half decent. His previous 9 fights had been 6-1-2 including a brilliant win over Omar Nino Romero for the title. Most of his career losses were to decent fighters, guys like Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, Victor Zaleta and Omar Salado and he was in the form of his life, he was active, he was tick all the right boxes as a fighter. Don't get me wrong, he's nothing more than a title holder waiting for a challenger to come along and take his belt away, but he's an active fighter over the past few years on a run. Aguirre is an inactive fighter, who has been on the receiving end of a lot of recent beatings and should NEVER have been world ranked. Only the WBC ranked Aguirre which says it all.

Aguirre had, once, almost a life time ago (2000-2004) been the WBC's Minimumweight champion, maybe this is what helped lift him to such an over-inflated ranking, though it's stupid if it was and would allow fighter 5 years deposed to challenger for titles a division up. What may be the worst problem though is that this is the 3^rd attempt at the same title that Aguirre has had since 2005. His first attempt was a loss to Eric Ortiz (TKO7), his second was a 12 round decision to Brian Viloria. He would also challenge Roberto Vasquez (WBA champion) and Ulises Solis (IBF champion) for the title during his 2-7 run.

Imagine if tomorrow, Monte Barrett stood at #8 in any of the heavyweight rankings and the slaughtering a fighter would get for facing him. Oddly Barrett would, on paper, not me a much worse challenger. Barrett is 4 years older (39 to Aguirre's 35), with 1 draw more on his record (34-9-2 to Aguirre's 34-9-1) but 3-4-2 in his last 9. This really is the scandalous world of boxing rankings folks. A real joke.

Oh and just to test a theory. Manny Pacquiao.

Who will David Haye face next?

Whether you’re a boxing fan or not, you’ll surely have been caught up in some of the hype one side of the Atlantic or the other. Here in Blighty we had David Haye v Audley Harrison and in the US the Cowboy Stadium was the centre of attention with Manny Pacquaio v Antonio Margarito being the talking point. Which ever country you were in, you saw only one fighter winning their fight, and although Margarito put up much better fight than Harrison the bookies got them both spot on.

As I’m British I probably heard more about the Harrison v Haye farce than the other fight (which I watched and thoroughly enjoyed). So with it being Britain I’m going to focus this piece on the fight we had. Or rather the relatively legalised assault we had as calling it a fight would probably be breaching trade description act. Audley, as many seemed to think before hand, lacked the fighters instinct and after landing a meagre 1 shot in the opening 2 rounds was thoroughly beaten in the 3^rd. What good will come of this? Well aside from the fact Audley Harrison has almost certainly been beaten into retirement in front of one of the largest viewing publics in recent British history.

Although it was probably the worst heavyweight title fight in recent memory, and that’s including the likes of Wladamir Klitschko v Sultan Ibragimov it has allowed boxing fans, at last, to realise that David Haye is a hypocrite. The man who said he was going to tear through the heavyweight division facing only meaningful opponents has instead faced a nobody. Not for the first time in his career, and it probably won’t be the last. Sadly though Haye has a knack of fighting older menm varying skill levels but older men. His last few opponents have been on the wrong side of 35, with Audley being 39, the most extreme age of those “old” fighters Haye has been facing in recent years.

With this in mind, I’ve come to the assumption Haye will be looking for another older fight to feast on next and decided to come up with a short list of my own. Don’t worry, about this giving Haye and Adam Booth ideas, I’m sure they already have a similar short list.

Tony Thompson-age 39, record 34-2 (22)
Thompson may not actually be far off the mark of plausibility. Thompson did spar with Haye in the build up for the Harrison fight, he was reported to have dropped Haye in sparring, allowing the fight to be sold on that. A former title challenger who has maintained a high ranking is 30-1 in his last 31 fights with his only stoppage loss coming against Wladamir Klitschko.

Juan Carlos Gomez-age 37, record 48-2-0-1 (36)
Like Haye, Gomez was a former Cruiserweight champion (holding the WBC belt from 1998 to 2002). Although once hugely talented Gomez has done the same thing as many modern day heavy’s and used the division as an excuse for an ever growing waist band. At 200lbs he was a fine athlete but now coming to the ring around 250 he looks visibly fat. Like Thompson (see above) Gomez has had a world heavyweight title fight, losing in the 9^th round to Vitali Klitschko in 2009 though is on a 4 fight unbeaten streak against journeymen.

Evander Holyfield-age 48, record 43-10-2 (28)
Perhaps the heavyweight grandpa, but still a legendary name in the sport and a man who would happily sign to fight Haye any day. Although Holyfield is shot, he’s still fighting and has a fight against Sherman Williams in a few weeks coming up. Many, including myself, felt that Holyfield deserved the decision against Nikolai Valuev back in December 2008 in a WBA world title fight, and had Holyfield gotten the decision Haye may never have won the title. This fight could be sold as “Setting the record straight”, though it’ll be seen as “Haye beats up pensioner”, hard to see a bigger American name than Holyfield however and a unification fight of sorts (Holyfield holds the lightly regarded WBF title).

Antonio Tarver-age 41, record 28-6 (19)
The former Light Heavyweight champion announced his move to the heavyweight division in October with a wide points win over Nagy Aguilera. Having held various titles at 175lbs he’s trying to follow in the footsteps of rival Roy Jones Jr and take a title off one of the big men and Haye is the smallest of the big men. It’s worth noting that Tarver is pretty much the same size as Haye, admittedly he weighed 12lbs heavier in his last fight though is just 1 inch shorter and would give away 3 inches in reach. A possible match that could earn Haye some American focus.

Jean Marc Mormeck-age 38, record 35-4 (22)
A rematch of their Cruiserweight contest from back in November 2007 would this time see Haye calling the shots, rather than needing to go over to Paris for the fight. Though the interest in the contest is minimal, Mormeck is currently campaigning as a Heavyweight and was a former undisputed champion at Cruiserweight. From the eyes of those involved it could make a lot of sense, allowing Mormeck to retire on a nice payday in front of 20,000 in Britain.

David Tua-age 37, record 51-3-2 (43)
12 months ago internet forums were genuinely calling for this fight, the fan friendly Tua, a KO machine from New Zealand was on the comeback trail and a fight with Haye was almost made for fans. Though since then Tua has shown he’s no long the KO machine he once was. A very controversial draw with former Haye victim Monte Barrett last time out showed that Tua was what most 37 year old heavyweights are, washed up. Barrett dropped Tua in the 12^th round, for the first time in Tua’s career he was decked. As a fighter he has managed to only get 1 world title fight and that was over a decade ago (a points loss to Lennox Lewis), perhaps he deserves another, their has been less deserving opponents (such as Harrison) after all.

Oliver McCall-age 45, record 54-10-0-2 (37)
Haye has been called the hardest hitting in the division by some of his fans, McCall has generally been called the toughest man in the division. What happens when an immoveable object meets an irresistible force? McCall will also bring some British history to the ring. In 1994 he stopped Lennox Lewis in the second round, in The Arena, in Wembley, he has also faced (and lost) to Frank Bruno and Lewis in a rematch. The rematch is best known for McCall having a mental break down, though neither the hard hitting Bruno nor Lewis could drop McCall, can Haye do what they couldn’t?

Hassan Chitsaz-age 52, record 19-1 (19)
The oldest professional heavyweight in the world today, a KO machine who scored 19 straight stoppages in the opening 2 rounds before he was beaten recently in the opening few seconds. Haye’s work of retiring fighters will work brilliantly against the Iranian born “assassin”, though it’s unlikely that the WBA will allow their title to be put on the line, that wouldn’t stop the fight from being a non-title fight. The fighting public would see more fight from Chitsaz than they saw from Harrison recently, so lets not ignore this possibility, after all Haye needs to take on some punchers, a guy who has a 95% KO record can’t hit that softly…can he?




All though these fights are tongue in I wouldn’t write them off altogether, Haye does like the older men, and although he is mandated to face Ruslan Chagaev, theirs no saying Chagaev will be able to fight in the UK due to medical worries. Maybe, just maybe, Hayes trend of old men will continue.