Two-time light heavyweight champion Glen Johnson (47-11-2, 32 KOs) was too much for his limited opponent Hugo Pineda (39-4-1, 28 KOs), stopping him in the 8th round of a scheduled 10-round fight on Saturday night at the Bally’s Hotel & Casino, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The 36 year-old Pineda was taking severe punishment by Johnson on the ropes in the 8th when Pineda signaled to the referee that he’d had enough and wanted the fight to be stopped. The referee David Fields then moved in and halted the fight at 0:49 of the 8th round. Read more…

Undefeated heavyweight prospect Chazz Witherspoon (21-0, 14 KOs) had a tougher time than expected in winning an eight-round unanimous decision victory over Kendrick Releford (15-10-2, 6 KOs) on Saturday night at the Bally’s Hotel & Casino, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Witherspoon, a slow, methodical-type fighter with very heavyweight hands, but not a real big punch, wasn’t able to break down Releford like he’d done against his previous 20 opponents, and found him self in a dog fight by the fourth round when Releford’s speed advantage began to turn the fight around. Read more…

In a bout that in now reflected the final judges’ scores, International Boxing Federation light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (24-1, 5 KOs) received a gift 12-round unanimous decision over challenger Herman Ngoudjo (16-2, 9 KOs) on Saturday night at the Bally’s Hotel & Casino, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The final judges’ scores were 117-111, 116-113 and 115-113, giving the 27 year-old Malignaggi the decision. Read more…

Super middleweight contender Allan Green (26-1, 18 KOs) continued with his successful comeback with an impressive 10-round lpsided unanimous decision over Ruben Williams (29-3, 16 KOs) on Friday night at the Million Dollar Elm Casino, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was the third consecutive win for Green, 28, since losing a disappointing unanimous decision loss to Edison Miranda in March 2007. Green had little problems with Williams, using mainly his jab and right hand to pound out the 10 round decision. Read more…

Undefeated middleweight George Tahdooahnippah (9-0-1, 8 KOs) fought to a majority draw with James Brian Cook (10-3-1, 7 KOs) on Friday night at the Million Dollar Elm Casino, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tahdooahnippah, 29, a fighter whom has built up an impressive knockout record on exclusively soft opposition, finally ran into a fighter that he couldn’t knock out in Cook, though he tried hard for the KO. Tahdooahnippah came out blazing in the first two rounds of the scheduled four round bout, backing Cook up and tagging with a rain of punches. Read more…

In a battle of junior middleweight prospects, Carson Jones (13-5-1, 7 KOs) defeated Jose Luis Gonzalez (11-2, 9 KOs) by six-round majority decision on Friday night at the Million Dollar Elm Casino, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jones, 21, use his speed advantage to win the first round of the fight, hitting Gonzalez with frequent right hands and uppercuts. However, Gonzalez, who appeared two inches taller than his listed 5′11″ height, kept coming forward, applying continous pressure on Jones, and by the 2nd round, it was Gonzalez that was controlling the action. Read more…

Sports Illustrated magazine has recently named undefeated World Boxing Council/World Boxing Organization middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (32-0, 29 KOs) as fighter of the year for 2007, beating out Floyd Mayweather Jr., who grossed the most amount of money of any boxer in the sport. However, according to SI writer Chris Mannix, the 25 year-old Pavlik accomplished far more than Mayweather did during the year despite not getting paid nearly as good. Read more…

In a less than impressive performance Brian Viloria (20-2, 12 KOs), now competing as a super flyweight, won an eight-round unanimous decision over Jose Garcia Bernal (27-11-1, 18 KOs) last night at the Alameda Swap Meet, in Los Angeles, California. The final judges’ scores were 78-72, 78-72 and 78-72. The scores, however, don’t indicate how close the fight was, as I hard Bernal winning the fight four rounds to three going into the final round. In the 8th round, Viloria knocked Bernal down with a running right hand to the midsection. Previous to that, Bernal had lost a point after being penalized for losing his mouthpiece. Read more…

#4th ranked International Boxing Federation lightweight contender (29-2, 17 KOs) came out on fire tonight, blasting out would-be prospect Ricardo Dominguez (23-3-2, 15 KOs) in the 1st round with a powerful left hook to the head at the Million Dollar Elm Casino, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Raheem, 31, came out looking determined at the start of the fight, hitting Dominguez with right hands and left hooks the head, while at the same time remaining elusive as always and making him miss repeatedly. Raheem quickly landed a big right hand, and then finished him off with a perfect left to the head. Referee Steve Smoger moved in and halted the slaughter at 1:18 of the first round. For Raheem, it was an important bout, as he’s faded from the top after being on the receiving end of two horrible decisions to Acelino Freitas and Rocky Juarez in 2004 and 2006.

According to Boxingtalk website, light heavyweight Bernard Hopkins is saying that he thinks that Joe Calzaghe and him should have a contract signed by sometime next week for a bout likely to occur between April 11th-12th, to take place in Las Vegas, Nevada. Apparently, Calzaghe and Hopkins have an oral agreement to the fight, Hopkins told boxintalk. Of course, that means little, as you well know, as Hopkins, who has been pursued continuously by Calzaghe, 35, for the past two months, could change his mind if the money isn’t right when it comes to signing the contract for the fight. Read more…

In today’s boxing news around the horn, WBC/WBA cruiserweight champ David Haye (20-1, 19KOs) hopes to be able to repeat former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis’ knockout performance against over-matched Michael Grant in 2000, in which Lewis scored a sweet 2nd round KO. Haye, 27, hopes that he can stop Maccarinelli in similar fashion, quickly taking him out with big right hands. Apparently, Haye feels that Maccarinelli isn’t a legitimate fighter, but rather one that has been out together by his promoter. Read more…

Former middleweight/light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins reportedly stopped by the undefeated World Boxing Organization Sultan Ibragimov’s (22-0, 17 KOs) training camp to give him some helpful tips on how to beat Wladimir Klitschko (49-3, 44 KOs), the International Boxing Federation heavyweight champion, whom Ibragimov will be fighting in a unification bout on February 23, at Madison Square Garden, in New York City, New York. Ibragimov, 32, is a heavy underdog going into his bout with Wladimir, and needs any kind of advice he can get at this point.

It’s unclear what advice it was that Hopkins gave Ibragimov, but if it’s anything like Hopkins’ own fighting style, it involves staying mostly on the outside, and then coming in every once and while with quick flurries followed by a clinch. Hopkins should have saved his breath, as that’s the way Ibragimov fights all the time. It’s not pleasing to watch, to say the least, but it’s been effective against the mostly limited opposition that Ibragimov has fought thus far in his career. It remains to be seen how Ibragimov will defeat Klitschko’s hard jab and his left hook-right hand combination. Read more…

According to eastsideboxing.com, Per Ake Persson reports that undefeated heavyweight challenger Alexander Dimitrenko (27-0, 17 KOs) will put his unbeaten record on the line when he takes on fellow Universum fighter Luan Krasniqi (30-3-1, 14 KOs) in a bout likely to take place in Germany. Dimitrenko, 27, 2nd in the World Boxing Organization (WBO), 8th in the International Boxing Federation (IBF) and 10th in the World Boxing Association (WBA), and is considered by many to be one of the top heavyweight challengers in the division. Read more…

As the January 19th fight between former WBA/WBC/IBF light heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr. (51-4, 38 KOs) and former IBF welterweight and IBF/WBA light middleweight champion Felix Trinidad (42-2, 35 KOs) creeps closer, I’m beginning to suspect that this fight is going to be a blowout win for the soon to be 39 year-old Jones. Trinidad, 35, though he’s been training for months, he still looks nothing like he did in his prime, as he appears to be somewhat fleshy around the checks and chin, and looks to be still sporting a generous gut to go along with it.

Besides that, he looks old, much older than a person should normally look at the age of 35. Of course, Trinidad could very well prove me wrong by fighting well, like many fighters do when they’re slightly overweight, but judging how he fought last time out - a 12-round unanimous decision loss to Winky Wright in May 2005 - I have a hard time thinking that he’s going to come out on top over Jones. Recently, there’s been boxing news about Trinidad getting pointers on how to beat Jones from Glen Johnson, who viciously stopped Jones in the 9th round in September 2004. Read more…

Normally I would frame the question the other way around, asking whether the super lightweight Ricky Hatton, the naturally bigger fighter, could beat Manny Pacquiao, a super featherweight, but in watching how poorly Hatton did against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in their December 8th bout, I have my doubts about how well Hatton would do against a fighter as fast as Pacquiao. Read more…

Super middleweight Allan Green (25-1, 18 KOs) hopes to continue with resurrecting his once promising career when he takes on the tough Ruben Williams (29-2-1, 16 KOs) at the Million Dollar Elm Casino, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Green, 28, was being groomed as a future middleweight champion when he ran into Edison Miranda, who knocked him down twice, defeating him by 10-round unanimous decision in March 2007. However, unknown to most people, Green wasn’t well at the time of the bout, and required extensive surgery afterwards to remove much of his colon. Read more…

In the latest boxing news, World Boxing Association/World Boxing Council cruiserweight champion David Haye (20-1, 19 KOs) came out firing again in an interview with South London Press, saying about World Boxing Organization cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli (28-1, 21 KOs) “I can’t see it going past four or five rounds. The only way it will is if he gets a chin transplant from Marvin Hagler - and I don’t think he’s got time to do that in the next couple of months. There’s no way I can see him getting past the early rounds.”

Haye, 27, who won the WBA & WBC cruiserweight titles in an impressive 7th round TKO of champion Jean-Marc Mormeck on November 2007, is making no secret that he plans on going right at Maccarinelli in the opening rounds to try and immediately take him out. Haye’s strategy comes to no surprise to anyone, since Haye fights that way every time, putting everything he’s got into a quick knockout within the first couple of rounds. It’s been an effective style so far in Haye’s career, but it doesn’t always work, like in his fight with former British great Carl Thompson, who calmly took every thing that Haye could dish out in the first four rounds, and then stopped him in the fifth round when he had exhausted himself from having expended too much energy. Read more…

Bad luck plagued lightweight contender Zahir Raheem (28-2, 16 KOs) returns to the ring this Friday night against Ricardo Dominquez (23-2-2, 15 KOs) at the Osage Million Dollar Elm Casino in Tulsa. Raheem, 31, the beneficiary of two of the worst decision losses in boxing history in defeats to Acelino Freitas and Rocky Juarez, climbs back into the ring against the marginal prospect Dominquez, 22, a fighter that has fought exclusively C-level opposition with decent but not great results. Read more…

Now that a little time has gone by since Lennox Lewis (41-2-1, 32 KOs) has been out of boxing, I thought it would be an interesting idea to speculate how “The Lion” would have done against today’s top heavyweight champions - Wladimir Klitschko, Sultan Ibragimov, Ruslan Chagaev and Samuel Peter. Lewis was perhaps in his prime in 1997, around the time that he destroyed Andrew Golota in one vicious round at the Caesars Hotel & Casino, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. At that time in his career, the 6″5″ 250 lb Lewis was almost indestructible, with impressive wins over Ray Mercer, Oliver McCall and Tommy Morrison already on his resume.

Although he would later lose by 5th round KO to Hasim Rahman in 2001, that was more of a blip on his career radar screen. in 1997, however, Lewis had next to no competition to speak of, as Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield appeared to want none of him, and rightly so, they would have most likely been easily defeated by this giant of a boxing legend. So, how would today’s top heavyweights do against this version of Lewis? I’ve purposely left out World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Oleg Maskaev because I don’t see him beating Samuel Peter in their scheduled March 8th bout, hence he doesn’t apply to this list. Here below I’ll discuss my thoughts on a hypothetical match up: Read more…

Fringe heavyweight Brian Minto (29-2, 18 KOs) had little trouble in stopping opponent Byron Polley (27-8-1, 10 KOs) in the 1st round last night at the Mountaineer Race Track, in Chester, West Virginia. Minto, 32, not currently ranked in the top 10 in the heavyweight division, quickly used his powerful right hand to drop Polley moments into the fight. Upon getting up, Polley was knocked down once again by Minto, who timed him perfectly with a 1-2 combination, sending Polley down for the final count. Referee Tim Wheeler then moved in and halted the bout at 1:52 of the 1st round. Read more…