Rossman

7 hours ago, David said:

As for the comment above from @Rossman encouraging the media to give him shit? Pipe the fuck down. Khan isn't just an exemplary athlete and role model for young boxers in this country, he's also got a terrific history with charity work.

He's also got a terrific history of shagging women behind his wife's back. Top bloke.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/5425056/amir-khan-wife-faryal-makhdoom-pregnant-cheating/

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/6387424/amir-cheat-after-faryal-birth/

He got paid £4m for that fight. You expect those who paid for it on PPV and bought ringside tickets to say, well that was a let-down but its ok, he does a lot of charity work. He quit and they can't even get their story straight on what happened.

- First it was, he got hit in the balls and he couldn't think straight or feel his legs, so wanted to stop the fight

- Then it was, Virgil Hunter saw he was in a lot of pain and wanted to stop the fight.

-  Gareth Davies is now saying it was an elbow injury he picked up in training, that stopped it

Glass chin, glass bollocks. And it didn't even hit him in the nuts, it was on the thigh/hip area. He was pushing Crawford's head down too so he couldn't land any higher.

If there was any iota of being in his body that wanted him to continue, he would have took the full 5 minutes recovery time. He lost every round and was getting pummelled, he wanted out.

I hope he now gets the David Haye toe lambasting from the media. I can't believe they paid him $5m for the fight too.

Did make me laugh when they did the mid-fight interview with Crawford's trainer and asked him "How are you going to cope with Khan's handspeed" ---- "His hand speed ain't shit!" And he was right, Khan doesn't have the speed like he used to.

Take the Brook and then give it up.

Lomachenko looked a lot more vicious than I've seen him before. He's probably had harder sparring than that fight. But what can you do? Crolla was the stand-in, mandatory, former world champion, durable fighter with a good engine. Had not been stopped in 7 years. It should have been a decent test but he got bamboozled and destroyed. It's a bit worrying when Joe Gallagher got "Fun Time" Frankie Gavin as Crolla's sparring partner, when you're trying to emulate a P4P fighter. Also no head movement what-so-ever. That might be alright when you're facing an Ecuadorian bus driver Eddie's brought over to boost your record but you're can't fight slick boxers, who move in angles with a gloves up guard, they're going to wipe you out.

This has been doing the rounds, Sam Maxwell vs. Sabri Sedri from last night. Maxwell had been down twice and was taking a beating in the final round. Sedri then starts taunting him as his legs do a little dance. Then karma strikes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc6Gaqklz9Y

Ironically going into the final round, Maxwell was up on two of the cards.

Caught up with a few scraps from last week. The one that piqued my interest was the John Molina Jr. vs. Omar Figueroa Jr fight. Both like to go to war and fight. This turned into a close quarters, slug-fest but didn't really catch fire. Both are in an awkward position, this was their first fights in 18 months. Neither are ranked in the top 15 welterweights. Figueroa who held the lightweight title and is still undefeated came in looking out of shape but his power and chin got him over the line. Molina stuck to single right hands that found a home but was on the receiving end of two more. The position Molina is in, there are not many competitive fights for him at this weight. Figueroa also, the jump from 135lbs to 147lbs seems ill-advised. He's still only 29 and a move down would probably suit his size better.

Down in Mexico tonight, they've got Brandon Rios vs. Humberto Soto on the DAZN card and also on Sky Sports. It's supposed to be at Super Welterweight (154lbs). Soto came in at 146lbs and Rios at 151lbs. Rios was also limping at the weigh-in. Good odds on Soto also. Whatever happens, it should be a decent tear-up.

I see Billy Joe Saunders is getting a shot at the vacant WBO Super Middleweight title against some unknown bum. I think they're trying to improve his credibility when he beats this fella, then drop the strap and go back down to 160 and fight Andrade. Maybe try and get the fight over here so he doesn't get VADA tested.

Joe Joyce will get found out at a later date. Too robotic and slow to be a contender in the world title picture. Luckily Stiverne is even slower and with the extra bulk will move like he's wearing concrete boots.

Groves made the template on how to beat Eubank Jr. Just box him, he hasn't got a clue on the fundamentals and Chunky does with an impressive amateur pedigree. If they start throwing bombs and getting into an unnecessary war, it may be a different story.

Interested to see how Lee Selby does at lightweight tonight. He looked drained at featherweight and at the weigh-in he didn't look much different for lightweight. He's said in the past, he's known as a puncher in his gym but that never transcended to his fights. Hopefully with some extra bulk, he's more comfortable. His opponent, Omar Douglas hasn't been ko'ed and only lost to a world champion and championship contender. He looked in good shape at the weigh in, so should make for a competitive fight.

Teofimo Lopez has some serious skills. Him vs.Lomachenko at lightweight would go off but I don't think Loma would take it because it's too high risk, losing to a prospect. In the fight, Magdaleno fell into Lopez's trap everytime, constantly leaning forward to punch and getting hit with the uppercut. He possesses slick movement, impressive reflexes. He's got a cocky streak as well with his post fight dancing when he's just sparked his opponent out.

Next he will need a stronger task against someone like Yvan Mendy or Anthony Crolla.

It did make me laugh. When Manny slowed down in the ninth and gave Broner a reasonable chance to hit him. The counterpuncher got counterpunched and rocked. Broners only defence to stop Manny's flurries was to clinch or push his head down. He should have had a point deducted for the amount of unsporting conduct he was doing.

I'm really surprised, the baying mob didn't tear that Billy fella to shreds. The only people I felt sorry for were the labourers and the lady with the restaurant who had all of this shit just dumped on them and have lost the  most.

What was  the fella taking about when they all rushed to get tents. And he said he was cutting up tents, stealing mattresses and pissing on the floors in there? What was the point in that. 

Speaking of Linares, he was in all sorts of trouble against Pablo Cesar Cano on Friday night. Got knocked down three times in the first round. Then the ref had to stop it as he was out on his feet, soon after. 

Don't worry, the first 8 rounds give the theme for the last four. You ain't missing much.

Pretty cool we're getting some free fights on TV again.

Uzcategui / Plant should be a good scrap. Plant looked ripped at the weigh-in. If he wins he will be the first white American to win a world title since Chris Algieri beat Ruslan Provodnikov 3 and a half years ago.

Guillermo Rigondeaux is fighting on the undercard tonight without much fanfare. He's fighting a Mexican journeyman so should be a routine win.

The only way Khan is staying relevant is being the go to guy to take these title fights  which are out of his league. If he doesn't say yes there and then, they're gone 

Firstly moving up in weight to fight Canelo and now being the stand-in for the Crawford fight. His ability at welterweight is pretty ineffective, he doesnt have concussive power and his chin is trademarked sketchy.

He's dining out on his past world titles at lower weight divisions and his reputation for always being in exciting fights. Thats why he gets the call. 

It's no different from Khan fighting an old Barrera early in his career. Or Danny Garcia fighting old Erik Morales in his career. Both were over the hill and fighting in weight divisions too high for them but still got the fights because it was a name on their opponents boxing record.

Fighters can't fight the best of the best in their division, fight after fight. It will shorten their careers very fast.

Few comments from the Matchroom show. Pleased for Charlie Edwards to win a world title in a pretty close fight. Judges score-cards were ridiculous and made it look like Rosales was paid to come over and drop the title.

Then in the Joshua Buatsi / Renold Quinlan fight. They were tied up. Referee called break and Buatsi leathered him, knocking him down. Referee should have at least had a word with Buatsi. If Quinlan couldn't get back up, the referee does have the power to caution or disqualify Buatsi. There was no need for it, Buatsi was on top and the stoppage would have come anyway. He only shot himself in the foot because he needs experience in rounds and didn't get it. At least that is the last of Terry O'Connor refereeing, he has been in some real howlers.

Martin Murray has retired. That's the last of the four middleweight prodigies in Murray, Macklin, Lee & Barker. Who would have fought it would be the latter two to hold world titles out of them.

39 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

Yeah but conditioning isn’t all just about lbs. You could weigh pretty much exactly the same one year to the next but be in better condition 12 months later due to a change in diet, added muscle etc. I’m no fighter and I’m little fucker, a bit of a minimumweight if you will, my weight stays around 9.5-10st all year round no matter what I do or how much I eat or shit out. But depending on if I’m on my running, BJJ etc I can be in much better shape in a 3 month span but the numbers pretty much stay the same on the scales I just tone up a bit.

Yes this can be done as a gradual transition over a 1 year period. Chisora has had 5 months since his last fight and I bet he had a good long rest after that.

I'm the same as you. I tick over with cardio every week and can pretty much eat what I like as my weight doesn't change. But there is a big difference between 10 & 17 stone. If you're eating right, training hard, doing the road work. That weight would drop off in a 2/3 month training camp. A 6 foot 2" man shouldn't be 17 stone that's classed as obese by the BMI scale. Of course, there are different body types and there are exceptions like Joshua but his fat % will be a lot different to Chisora's because he has consecutively trained hard and built his body up to pure muscle. But for Chisora who lacks technical ability and is a slow plodding slugger. The desired weight must be a ratio between speed and power. If he cuts weight, will he lose the power? It's an unknown quantity.

1 hour ago, Cod Eye said:

Talk in the pub last night turned to boxing, and a question was asked that none of us could answer as we only class ourself as casual boxing fans these days. Basically, the question was how often do we get top level "minimum weight" division matches on TV over here? I can't remember ever seeing one...

It's very rare because most of the best fighters at strawweight are Thai, Japanese or Mexican and are largely unknown. There was a minimum weight title fight on the Fury/Wilder undercard. I don't know if it aired here but the result of the main event probably over-shone it anyway.

I will reserve judgement about Chisora until I have seen him fight. Can't believe a word of what he's saying now he's got that twat David Haye as his manager. The talk about his physique is a red herring, he's 3lb's lighter than his last fight. For a 17 stone, professional fighter that's nothing. I shit out a lb in the morning and I work in I.T.

Teofimo Lopez's knockout from last night. It doesn't go on for long.

Shame about the Kelly fight. He looked a bit off at the weigh-in, his eyes were wide open. To make the show worse, they've gone with Nick Halling & Joe Gallagher on commentary. It's not a good combo.

Looking forward to the card Stateside tonight.

Lomachenko v Pedraza.

Isaac Dogboe v Emanuel Navarrete - this looks to be a great fight on paper. Both young, big punchers and pretty tough. Dogboe is pretty unknown but he's a Ghanian/British fighter who looks to be on an upward trajectory. This will be his 4th fight this year and he's on a 5 fight stoppage streak.

There's also a couple of interesting prospects, Alexander Besputin & Teofimo Lopez on the undercard.

14 hours ago, Porkchopcash said:

Boxing News have a list of the top five highest grossing fights ever....

1. Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao – $410 million; 4.6 million PPV buys

2. Floyd Mayweather vs. Canelo Alvarez – $150 million; 2.2 million PPV buys

3. Floyd Mayweather vs. Oscar De La Hoya – $136 million; 2.48 million PPV buys

4. Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield II – $100.2 million; 1.99 million PPV buys

5. Mike Tyson vs. Lennox Lewis – $112 million; 1.95 million PPV buys. 

I am assuming they have not included the Mgregor fight for whatever reason and these are strictly American buys and money. If you notice De La Hoya and Floyd had more buys than Canelo and Floyd but did less money.

I would imagine that's because the cost of the PPV's increased as the years went on. Similar with 4 & 5.Tyson vs Holyfield 2 was in 97 and Tyson vs. Lewis was in 2002. Tyson vs. Holyfield 2 did slightly more buys but less money.

Brandon Rios vs Ramon Alvarez is an interesting fight. Fighting at a catchweight of 151lbs - Rios doesn't look particularly healthy but made the weight. How many fights he's got left without being a permanent vegetable is undetermined but he's signed a 3 fight deal with DAZN. Checking out the betting odds, you can get good odds on an Alvarez win 11/2. Alvarez isn't very talented and a standard journeyman. If he's got a bit about him, he can tire Rios out and outbox him.

He tore the tendon in his hand in his last fight. There's quite a grim video on his Twitter of them operating on it.

5 hours ago, Egg Shen said:

Even though the Sky broadcast team were very biased and got abit carried away (with Paulie being the voice of reason) the official scorecards had Bellew 5-2 up at the time of the stoppage, i had it 4-3 Usyk. If Bellew hadnt have been stopped that fight was gonna be close on the cards even if Usyk won the last 4 rounds.

That was one scorecard, I think it was the Mexican's. The other card was level and the other had Bellew ahead by a point. If he finished that round, Usyk would have been up on 2 of the cards. That's all a formality now though. Bellew got walloped, hopefully he's alright and has stopped kissing everyone on the forehead. Good luck to the guy, he's pretty good on post fight analysis for Sky.

Carl Froch is hopeless on commentary. I can't see how someone who's been in lots of big fights, can't read a fight and see what's happening in front of his eyes. It's as if Bellew was winning everything and then all of a sudden, he was gassed, wasn't throwing anything and was in serious danger. Also the DAZN stream had bloody Nick Halling as the announcer. You can't get away from them.

It was refreshing to hear Matt Macklin give a direct assessment of Scott Cardle's ability. "He's a couple of levels below domestic level." He got wiped out by Ricky Burns in 3 rounds. One eye had a bad cut, the other was swollen. Big right hand and Cardle froze, bounced back and then flatlined on the canvas. Ricky's still got a few miles to go on the clock and this was an easy tuneup for him.

Tony Bellew's success is down to Eddie Hearn's promotion. It's amazing what people buy into. He called himself the best at cruiserweight but has never fought or defeated anyone who's held a world title in that division. His best win is probably against Mateusz Masternak and he's just above Euro level.

They brought over Illabu Makabu as if he was John Mugabi fighting Marvin Hagler. Turns out he packed a punch and had no chin. Hasn't been seen since. Then came part time boxer, full time announcer BJ Flores who was one of the easiest fights you could find. He had to hit him with a low blow and elbow to the head to finish that one. The two Haye charades, Bellew's inability to stop a one legged boxer and fighting a man who's ego thinks he should be fighting but his body is telling him not to.

Whatever weapons you have against Usyk he will defuse them. Gassiev is a bigger puncher than Bellew and he couldn't touch Usyk. You can't hit what you can't catch. Briedis was his hardest fight but his conditioning and power shots are positively similar. Bellew does not have the same workrate as Briedis and definitely not the same as Usyk. Watch Bellew blow out of his arse for a long period of the fight. The fatigue will lead to mistakes, then maybe a stoppage.

Patel's a massive plonker who would get spanked if he fought anyone semi-credible in this country. He had 4 fights in March & April this year and of those 4 fighters, they had a combined record of 5 fights.

Here's the Berchelt / Roman fight.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6wn0z6

And that's why I don't bet! Really unlucky for Burnett. He was looking class with his footwork and movement around the ring. In such instances do you think it's fair the champion should lose their title if the injuries corroborated by a doctor?

Josh Taylor looked great, Ryan Martin, poor sod never got going. Stoppage was too soon and Martin was clearly coherent but probably didn't want anymore but that's not the referee's job to decide. Also a definite conflict of interests to have a Scottish fighter in a Scottish City with a Scottish referee.

Miguel Berchelt v Mickey Roman was a big old Mexican war. Definitely one to catch. Roman's 73rd fight and his 3rd attempt at a world title. Berchelt, the young gun who's knocking everyone out in his path. Tactics went out the window and both swung for the fences. Roman would never give in, he must have been punch drunk 10 times but kept coming forward.

 Can't see past two wins for the UK fighters tonight.

If I was a betting man, I would probably put Burnett down to stop Donaire tonight. Burnett's not a big puncher but Donaire is 35 now and he's dropping down two weight divisions to be in the tournament. If Burnett starts to break down the body, Donaire will run out of gas.

Never heard of Ryan Martin but I don't think he will be too much trouble for Josh Taylor.