Boxing Thread

[Larryboy]

It doesn't look like it. No one has Matt Skeltons fight for the european title either. No one showed the thriller between Tomasz Adamek and Steve Cunningham last week (thanks youtube) but we do get classics like Kendall Holt vs Demetrius Hopkins .

[Sergio Bellend]

Matt Skelton's European Heavyweight title fight is live on the internet tonight on a thing called streamit.

 

All the information is here

[Sergio Bellend]

Looks like Skelton won with a 9th round KO

[bry2j]

According to Sky Sports News Mr Waste of PPV Amir Khan's next opponent is Marco Antonio Barerra!

[Joe_the_Lion]

According to Sky Sports News Mr Waste of PPV Amir Khan's next opponent is Marco Antonio Barerra!

 

Unless MAB has had both arms amputated since last fight I fear Khan is in some serious trouble. Will be highly amusing though.

 

Patricks thread about Ricardo Montalban suddenly seems quite prophetic.

Edited January 15, 2009 by Joe_the_Lion

[Sergio Bellend]

Khan will get absolutely battered, do doubt. Depending where the fight is, I would have to go to see the embarassment of it all.

[Egg Shen]

Khan/Barrera, i can't believe they've managed to put that one together.

[DJ Stevie C]

Khan takes a battering.

 

Has a mildly succesful return bout.

 

And goes to take another battering.

 

Sorry whoever is steering his career is a fucking idiot. He needs 2 or 3 'easy' wins to get him back on track before even thinking of people like Barerra.

[BionicRedneck]

To be fair, Barrera is 34, semi-retired and a small lightweight. Khan is young, active and big for the division. Plus, Khan has Freddie Roach in his corner.

 

I mean, as long as MAB isn't completely shot, I think he'll win, I'm just saying it's maybe not as crazy as it first sounds.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Perhaps Frank Warren has realised that Khan is not going to make the money for him that he thought and if he gets him beaten again he can dump his contract with him. I don't know how Kahn's last PPV drew, does anyone?

[David]

Anyone watching the Margarito/Mosley fight this weekend?

 

Bart Barry of CBS sportsline wrote an interesting column on the fight, and Mosleys chances of winning;

 

So much of prizefighting is about will: If you let your opponent do things his way in the ring -- no matter who he is -- you're going to lose. Making opponents do what they don't want to do, making them hate the experience of boxing you, is about the only way to become and remain a world champion.

 

Over the years we've learned it's very difficult to stop Shane Mosley from doing things his way in the ring. In July we learned it's nearly impossible to stop Antonio Margarito.

 

That means we're in for a treat. Saturday at Staples Center in downtown Los Angles, Margarito and Mosley will swap blows and willful impositions for Margarito's WBA welterweight title. Better still, the fight -- one that would have landed on pay-per-view in 2008 -- will be featured on HBO's first Championship Boxing program of 2009.

 

This will be an honest fight between two veteran punchers devoid of gimmickry. Both are set in their ways. Both have enjoyed great success with their ways. Neither expects anything he hasn't seen before. Both train like the next opponent will be the best opponent. Then both get in the ring and fight like the opponent was overestimated in training camp.

 

This will inevitably be HBO's second major broadcasting success of 2009 -- in large part because it will be HBO's second welterweight clash of 2009. The welterweight division is where it's at as the year begins.

 

Last Saturday night HBO began its Boxing After Dark season with a fantastic match between Andre Berto and Luis Collazo for Berto's WBC welterweight title. Berto won a unanimous decision because Collazo gave middle rounds away for no discernible reason. Maybe the veteran got fatigued. Maybe he was surprised how easily he bent Berto to his will early. Hard to say.

 

Collazo lost a regrettable decision to Ricky Hatton in 2006 and made a regrettable showing against Mosley one year later. This time, though, the regrets are all Collazo's. He had Berto confused and discouraged. He had Berto doing things he didn't want to do. Then Collazo gave it away, dropping his hands, dropping his activity and letting Berto decisively win the second half of the fight.

 

But mark this: Collazo was a lot more evenly matched with Berto than he was with Mosley two years ago.

 

That's another way of writing that, regardless of how many times he defends his WBC belt, Berto remains a contender in our sport's toughest division; you don't enter the welterweight championship argument until you've beaten either Margarito or Paul Williams. That's something Floyd Mayweather should keep in mind once fortune (or a lack thereof) brings him out of retirement.

 

Entering that argument at the age of 37 is what Shane Mosley hopes to do this weekend. No mean feat, that. It's hard to see a way Mosley can beat Margarito. Which is why we should ponder it. After all, it was hard to see a way Bernard Hopkins could beat Kelly Pavlik in 2008. That same year, it was also hard to see a way two of the world's largest banks would ask the U.S. government to nationalize them.

 

Over and again, friends, our collective certainty about everything was the great casualty of last year.

 

Those who expect Mosley to win, a small number that is different from those who give Mosley a fighting chance, believe his hand speed is still greater than Margarito's. They also believe Mosley's foot speed is greater. They may even believe Mosley hits harder. Heck, maybe they believe Mosley takes a better punch.

 

Trouble is, none of those traits seems to matter against Margarito. Cotto had most of them. Lotta good it did him.

 

Well here's a contrarian view of things. To beat Margarito, Mosley must go chest-to-chest. And mean it. He mustn't try to avoid Margarito -- after all, that just encourages the Mexican champion.

 

Mosley cannot flick his metronomic jab to set up his overhand right. Why not? A flicking jab by Mosley makes his left shoulder a target for Margarito's right cross. And Margarito's right cross is exactly that: A way to get his weight cross his body to his left foot. Along the way, Margarito shuts his opponent's lead shoulder. Then he fires off his left foot, putting his whole life behind a left uppercut that is gloriously oblivious of defensive consequence.

 

Pepper him with right crosses, Shane. Eschew the timing jab and leap in with right-hand leads. Leap all the way in. Get on Margarito's chest. Nobody's fought him there since Paul Williams. He doesn't seem to like it much. Stay inside his long arms. Keep throwing right hands -- make him taste leather every time he turns to cock his prized uppercut. It might make him uncomfortable.

 

Of course, it might also make him mad. That's one reason it might not work. See, Margarito's not going to get frustrated and switch to southpaw, drop his hands and try to steal a round with defense, or go into the Philly shell and pot-shot Mosley with right uppercuts.

 

Margarito's going to start with Plan A: pressure and left uppercuts. The best Mosley can hope to do is frustrate him into Plan B: more pressure and more left uppercuts.

 

Chest-to-chest, though, Mosley might have an advantage. Mosley throws his hooks in an odd sort of way, snapping his shoulders and torso to bring each fist along like the knot on the end of a bullwhip. Chest-to-chest, a place where nobody expects him to be, Mosley may also have an advantage of surprise. By the time Margarito adjusts to Mosley's attack, which he will, Mosley may have changed the balance of the fight.

 

It's an idea anyway.

 

But frankly, if you can barely imagine a way a fighter can win, you shouldn't pick him. So I won't. I'll take Margarito: UD-12. But I'll do so knowing conventional wisdom is batting about 0.100 lately.

 

It would also seem that the Hatton/Pacquiao fight that was set to take place in May is virtually dead;

 

Manny Pacquiao's refusal to accept terms already agreed to by his promoter has apparently scuttled the planned May 2 bout between him and British fighter Ricky Hatton.

 

Promoters for both fighters said Wednesday the fight is off, with little chance of it being revived.

 

"You never say never, but right now it's off," said Bob Arum, who promotes Pacquiao. "Hatton's shopping around for a new opponent now."

 

Arum said the original agreement was for the two fighters to split their shares 50-50, with Pacquiao having a $12 million guarantee. That deal fell through when Pacquiao demanded the bigger percentage, and a new agreement called for him to get 52 percent of the purse.

 

But Arum said he couldn't get Pacquiao to sign the new deal, and that Hatton's promoter, Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions, decided Wednesday to cancel the ongoing preparations for the 140-pound bout.

 

Pacquiao is coming off a dominating win over Oscar De La Hoya and is generally considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Hatton was an attractive opponent because he would bring ticket and pay-per-view sales from England for the fight, which had been scheduled for the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas.

 

Apparently Manny was arguing that he deserves a bigger slice of the profits because of his popularity in the Philippines.

 

Hatton countered that they could go 50/50 on the gate, with Manny keeping all revenue from Filipino TV, whilst Hatton keeps the British revenue, but Manny didn't want any of that.

[Joe_the_Lion]

Manny Pacquiao's refusal to accept terms already agreed to by his promoter has apparently scuttled the planned May 2 bout between him and British fighter Ricky Hatton.

 

Promoters for both fighters said Wednesday the fight is off, with little chance of it being revived.

 

"You never say never, but right now it's off," said Bob Arum, who promotes Pacquiao. "Hatton's shopping around for a new opponent now."

 

Arum said the original agreement was for the two fighters to split their shares 50-50, with Pacquiao having a $12 million guarantee. That deal fell through when Pacquiao demanded the bigger percentage, and a new agreement called for him to get 52 percent of the purse.

 

But Arum said he couldn't get Pacquiao to sign the new deal, and that Hatton's promoter, Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions, decided Wednesday to cancel the ongoing preparations for the 140-pound bout.

 

Pacquiao is coming off a dominating win over Oscar De La Hoya and is generally considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Hatton was an attractive opponent because he would bring ticket and pay-per-view sales from England for the fight, which had been scheduled for the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas.

 

Apparently Manny was arguing that he deserves a bigger slice of the profits because of his popularity in the Philippines.

 

Hatton countered that they could go 50/50 on the gate, with Manny keeping all revenue from Filipino TV, whilst Hatton keeps the British revenue, but Manny didn't want any of that.

 

Apparently it is now back on, sort of, with Arum flying to see Pacquiao this morning - well that's what Radio 5 were reporting.

[David]

Apparently it is now back on, sort of, with Arum flying to see Pacquiao this morning - well that's what Radio 5 were reporting.

 

I certainly hope so.

 

My info is up to date as of Buncy's boxing hour on Setanta last night. That was the last time I heard any updates about it.

 

EDIT: Apparently, it's 100% on now.

 

link to article.

Edited January 23, 2009 by hardcore_harry

[Patrick "Madman" Kelly]

What a performance by Shane Mosley at the weekend. The guy put in a fight of a lifetime on Saturday and his right hand destroyed margarito. A Cotto fight has got to be on the cards now.

[Egg Shen]

i missed Mosley/Margarito i planned on watching, but the result flashed up on my homepage, fucking gutted.

 

anyways, there's controversy surrounding the fight, check this out:

 

Nazim Richardson (Shane Mosley