By William MacKay: In somewhat of an upset, previously undefeated middleweight prospect Michael Walker (18-1, 12 KOs) was beaten by Mexican journeyman David Lopez (35-12, 22 KOs) by a 10-round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Sundance Square, in Fort Worth, Texas. Walker, 29, fought well in the first four rounds of the fight, but then quickly faded thereafter allowing Lopez to take over the fight and dominate the remaining rounds of the 10-round bout. The final judges’ scores were 98-92, 98-92 and 98-92.

This loss wasn’t as much of a surprise for me, since I’d personally thought that Walker had done poorly in his recent 10-round majority decision win over Antwun Echols in February. Indeed, I thought that Echols had easily won the fight and couldn’t see how Walker had won the fight given his low punch output in the fight. Read more…

By Manuel Perez: Undefeated light middleweight prospect James De la Rosa (16-0, 11 KOs) had an easy time defeating Troy Wilson (9-7-1, 4 KOs) in a lopsided 8-round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Catholic Youth Center, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Along the way, De la Rosa, only 20, showed off excellent boxing skills, if not much in the way of power, while winning a totally one-sided bout.

In fairness to De la Rosa, he may have been able to have scored a knockout if Wilson hadn’t been fighting so defensively throughout the fight. The final judges’ scores were 80-72, 80-72 and 80-72, all for De la Rosa. The fight was mostly dull until the final round, when Wilson finally started letting his hands go for the first time in the bout, and hit De la Rosa with a number of big shots. It’s too had that Wilson waited so long, because who knows? If he had started sooner, he may at least have had a small chance at possibly scoring a knockout. As it was, he seemed to be content with just trying to do enough to survive the bout without getting hit with anything. Read more…

By Michael Lieberman: Though neither of these guys will ever be a major champion, British Commonwealth light heavyweight champion Dean Francis (30 (KO 24) + lost 3 (30-3, 24 KOs) and BBBofC British light heavyweight champion Tony Oakey (25-3-1, 7 KOs) put on an exciting bout in which both fighters stood toe-to-toe for much of the fight until the 32 year-old Oakey ran out of gas and was subsequently flattened in the 9th round by Francis in a scheduled 12-round bout on Saturday night at the Mountbatten Centre, Portsmouth, in Hampshire, United Kingdom.

Even after he had nothing left, and was no longer landing cleanly with his mostly weak shots, Oakey continued to apply pressure. His aggressive style caught up with in the 9th round when Oakey walked into a left hand, sending him to the canvas. At the time, Oakey was in the process of landing his own shot and wasn’t paying attention to his defense. Oakey got up, though badly hurt, and gamely attempted to fight despite looking to be completely out of his senses. Read more…

By Jim Dower: You got to feel for Mary Jo Sanders (25-1, 8 KOs). She came into Holly Holm’s (22-1, 6 KOs), showing the better boxing skills, and landing most of the cleaner shots by far in the 10-round fight, yet she came up short on a lopsided 10-round unanimous decision to Holmes, the IFBA International Female Boxing Association light middleweight champion, on Friday night at the Isleta Casino & Resort, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The final judges’ scores were 98-92, 98-92 and 97-93. I wasn’t all that surprised that Sanders lost the fight, since she was fighting in Holm’s how town in front of a large hostile crowd. However, I expected that if Sanders was going to be the subject of some home brewing, they’d at least make it somewhat close considering that Holm was getting out punched in almost every round of the fight.

Unfortunately, the judges’ didn’t get it right, perhaps influenced the large pro-Holm crowd. At any rate, I had Sanders easily winning the fight by eight rounds to two. She at least knew how to fight compared to the amateurish Holm, who spent most of the fight bouncing around on the outside, and occasionally charging forward with her head down like a bull. That’s essentially how Holm fights, that is, rushing forward and throwing punches. It looked bad to watch and most of the time she missed badly with her punches as she came forward. Read more…

By Sean McDaniel: Since losing to WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik last week, middleweight Gary Lockett (30-2, 21 KOs) has received a lot of criticism from boxing fans who feel that he wasn’t a worthy challenger for Pavlik and that he was a poor fighter. However, I think most of the people who say this are dead wrong. Lockett may have lost to Pavlik, and he may have been blown out by him, but he showed glimpses of some real talent before being buried by Pavlik, especially in the first round when Lockett repeatedly hit Pavlik with some huge left and right hand shots to the head and body.

Lockett’s power looked every bit as good as Pavlik, maybe even a shade better. His chin, however, wasn’t up to the mark and eventually let him down later in the 2nd and 3rd rounds when he was knocked down. I think this can be fixed, because he just needs to learn some head movement, a little more movement around the ring and perhaps increasing his work rate slightly. In terms of power, he’s second to none, but he’s got to learn some boxing skills to go along with that raw power. Read more…

By Nate Anderson: Undefeated WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (26-0, 17 KOs) has only 90 days to defend his title against the undefeated interim champion Adrian “The Shark” Diaconu (25-0, 15 KOs) or risk being stripped of his title. Dawson, however, most defend his title in Diaconu’s native Romania, because Ganker Promotions, who happens to be the promoter for Diaconu, won the rights to promote the fight with a purse bid to $1,813,000, outbidding Dawson’s promoter Gary Shaw, who bid $1,301,033. Having to travel all the way to Romania to defend his title in front of what will likely be a hostile crowd, Dawson, 25, has his work cut out for him.

Diaconu, 30, who represented Romania in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, is a power puncher with little hand speed, defeated Chris Henry in his last fight in April to win the WBC interim title. Originally from Romania, Diaconu now lives and fights out of Canada. Read more…

By Jim Dower: On June 21st, Edison Miranda (30-2, 26 KOs) and undefeated Arthur Abraham (26-0, 21 KOs) meet to settle some unfinished business in a 12-round bout at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Hollywood, Florida. Their first fight, fought two years ago on September 23, 2006, ended up with Abraham winning in a highly controversial manner, due to Miranda being docked five points by Randy Neumann. However, removing the point deduction from the equation, Miranda appeared to win the vast majority of the fight, excluding rounds 5, 7 and 9. Abraham, the IBF middleweight champion, fought only sporadically for most of the fight after having his jaw broken in the 4th round by Miranda.

After appearing to have lost the first four rounds of the fight, Abraham lucked out in the 5th round when Miranda lost his cool and heat-butted Abraham. The bout was stopped at that time, giving Abraham an extended period of time to have his jaw worked, even though the head butt hadn’t occurred in the area of the jaw. Read more…

By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated welterweight contender Andre Berto (21-0, 18 KOs) will meet up with the virtually unknown Miguel Angel Rodriguez (29-2, 23 KOs) for the vacant WBC welterweight title on June 21st, at the FedEx Forum, in Memphis, Tennessee. The title suddenly opened up last week with the unexpected retirement of Floyd Mayweather Jr. Berto, the number #1 ranked contender in the WBC welterweight division, had been hoping to land a fight with Mayweather to challenge for the title. However, with the retirement of Mayweather, this opened up the title for Berto and Rodriguez, the number #2 ranked contender in the WBC, to meet face to face to determine the new WBC welterweight champion.

Berto, 24, an unsuccessful representative for Haiti at the 2004 Olympics, has been impressive for the most part since turning professional, beating a slew of mostly C-level fighters. He has a lot of power, speed and good boxing skills. His chin, however, appears to be his weak point, as he’s been stunned, and even knocked down, in fights against B grade fighters. He had a tough time beating both Cosme Rivera and David Estrada, two of the best wins on his record, and took a lot of punishment from each of them. Read more…

By Michael Lieberman: There are really brave fighters in boxing, there are fighters that would take on anyone anywhere, then there are fighters that prefer not to take risks in the twilight of their careers. Joe Calzaghe is the prefer not to take risks at the end of their career type, judging from today’s boxing news about him saying that he’s not interested in fighting Kelly Pavlik this year. Calzaghe, 35, had a unique way of showing his disinterest in Pavlik, however, instead of coming right out and saying that he doesn’t want to fight him, Calzaghe instead put it on Pavlik, saying to the South Wales Angus “I’m not sure if Pavlik really wants to face me at the moment.”

This was a new one for me. If you don’t want to fight someone, turn the heat on them by saying they don’t want you. In this case, Calzaghe went even further, suggesting that Pavlik would have “little to gain” by fighting him because Calzaghe would beat him. Let me admit, I was more than a little amused by Calzaghe’s excuses because I had seen them coming weeks ago. I knew that Calzaghe wouldn’t face Pavlik long ago, and would find a suitable reason to give to the boxing public for declining a bout with him. Part of me - a big part of me - wanted to see this day come about, but even when I predicted this weeks ago, I figured that Calzaghe would have come up with a little better excuse, one that didn’t sound as disingenuous as what he ultimately came up with. Read more…

By Eric Thomas: Oscar De La Hoya (39-5, 30 KOs) will reportedly be fighting for the final time on December 6th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas against a still unnamed opponent. De La Hoya, who lost his original Floyd Mayweather Jr. for a bout that was supposed to have taken place on September 20th, is looking at a variety of opponents from Miguel Cotto, Felix Trinidad, Sergio Mora or Manny Pacquiao. Another potential opponent and the one that De La Hoya had the most interest in - Ricky Hatton - rejected an offer to fight De La Hoya, saying that he would prefer to go ahead and fight IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi instead.

Of the bunch that De La Hoya is currently interested in fighting, I highly doubt that Cotto or Trinidad will be the final choice for De La Hoya. Trinidad, 35, though a great fighter earlier in his career, he’s gone downhill considerably in the past seven years and has lost over half of his fights during that seven year span. Knowing that De La Hoya likes to mostly take on fighters that are still a challenge for him, he’ll probably not like the idea of fighting him at this stage in his career even though Trinidad previously defeated De La Hoya by a 12-round majority decision in September 1999. Read more…

By John Carter: Joe Calzaghe has been doing the rounds of another sort. He has been taking part in a few radio interviews and while speaking to ‘The South Wales Argus’ shortly after Kelly Pavlik’s fantastic destruction of his fellow countrymen Gary Lockett had a few interesting things to say.

Calzaghe first talked about Lockett’s disappointing loss the undefeated American middleweight champion, Kelly ‘The Ghost’ Pavlik.

“ Gary couldn’t execute his strategy. Pavlik was too aggressive and strong for him. I’ve got to say that I love watching this kid fight, he’s entirely forward thinking – retreating and holding just don’t come into his mind”

“ Kelly is a breath of fresh air for American boxing and they desperately need a guy like him and I think he’s got a big future “ Read more…

By Francisco Chantengo: South African Vusi Malinga (18-2-1, 11 KOs) destroyed former two-time bantamweight champion Veeraphol Sahaprom (61-4-2, 43 KOs) in a 4th round TKO of a scheduled 12-round WBC bantamweight eliminator bout on Wednesday night at the Bodindecha School, Bangkluay, in Nonthaburi, Thailand. Malinga, using a non-stop attack consisting mainly of uppercuts and hooks, dropped Sahaprom, 39, at the end of the 3rd round with a flurry of vicious uppercuts, and then finished him off at the start of the 4th round with a storm of punches to the head. Referee Bruce McTavish stepped in and stopped the bout at 0:36 of the 4th round with Sahaprom still on his feet.

In the opening round, Malinga tore into the former champion Sahaprom, who had previously held the WBC bantamweight title for an incredible seven years (from 1998-2005) and had defended the title successfully 14 times until losing it to now champion Hozumi Hasegawa, with nonstop uppercuts to the head. Sahaprom, at one a powerful puncher with a lot speed and a high work rate, was now much slower and less busy against Malinga. Read more…

By Michael Lieberman: Undefeated super middleweight prospect Peter Quillin (19-0, 14 KOs) had great difficulty beating hard-hitting Colombian Dionisio Miranda (19-2-2, 18 KOs) by a 10-round unanimous decision on Wednesday night at the Hard Rock Times Square, in New York City, New York. Quillin, 24, nicknamed “Kid Chocolate,” won most of the early rounds of the fight and appeared to be cruising along in the 7th, when the powerful Miranda (no relations to the knockout artist Edison Miranda, also a Colombian) hurt Quillin with a powerful left-right combination that sent Quillin, now badly stunned, retreating to the ropes where Miranda unloaded on Quillin with 14 consecutive unanswered punches.

However, Miranda soon punched himself out, which allowed a badly shaken Quillin to survive the round. Quillin would recover well in the 8th, and fight effectively in the remaining 9th and 10th rounds of the fight. The final judges’ scores were 97-92, 97-92 and 97-93. Read more…

By Michael Lieberman: In a shocking upset, number #1 ranked IBF junior middleweight Sechew Powell (23-2, 14 KOs) was stopped in the 7th round of a scheduled 10-round bout by Deandre Latimore (19-1, 16 KOs) on Wednesday night at the Hard Rock Times Square, in New York City, New York. Powell, 29, appeared to underestimate the quality and tenacity of his opponent, the 22 year-old Latimore, who fought him hard from the first round, making Powell fight much harder than perhaps he expected. Read more…

By Francisco Chantengo: To no one’s surprise, undefeated WBA super featherweight champion Edwin Valero (24-0, 24 KOs) stopped his 36 year-old Takehiro Shimada (22-4-1, 15 KOs) in the 7th round of a scheduled 12-round title bout on Wednesday night at the Nihon Budokan, in Tokyo, Japan. The bout, a horrible mismatch going in, was never remotely competitive as Valero, 26, treated the Japanese Shimada as punching bag for most of the fight, hitting him with wild looping shots over and over. In the 7th round, Valero missed a wild left hand, but then followed it with a hard right hook that caught Shimada dead on the chin, sending him down to the canvas where he crouched, looking as if he were taking a knee while holding onto the top rope with his left hand.

With his right hand he held it in front of his face, as if to indicate that he was surrendering. Valero, however, stood over him for a second, then reached out and clobbered him with a big right hand that sent the crouching Shimada on his back on the canvas, although incredibly he still never let go of the top rope. Shimada then made it to his feet, looking hurt, his left eye puffed up and swollen, and him looking out of it. The referee Guillermo Perez Pineda then promptly stopped the fight at 1:55 of the seventh round. Read more…

By Manuel Perez: Not too long ago, Floyd Mayweather announced that he retiring from boxing and saying that it was a permanent deal, that he wouldn’t be coming back because he had lost the love for the sport. I, for one, am hoping that Mayweather is good for his word and decides to stay away from boxing, because he’s basically stopped performing competitively years ago, perhaps all the way back to his second fight with Jose Luis Castillo in December 2002. That was his last meaningful, the last time that he fought someone that he wasn’t predicted ahead of time to beat by a landslide.

As it turns out, it was a fight that he didn’t even appear to win, nor had he seemed to have one the previous fight with Castillo earlier in the year, in April 2002. Both fights were narrow decisions, but naturally, Mayweather got the nod due to his big name. That, in a sense, was the last real fight for Mayweather as far as I’m concerned. After that, Mayweather went after strictly easy opponents, the type that he - or any other good fighter - could expect to beat without too much trouble. Among his wins were fighters such as Victoriano Sosa, Phillip N’dou, DeMarcus Corley, Henry Bruseles, Arturo Gatti, Sharmba Mitchell, Zab Judah, Carlos Baldomir, Oscar De La Hoya and finally Ricky Hatton. Do you get the picture? Read more…

By Francisco Chantengo: Making his sixth defense of his WBC bantamweight title, champion Hozumi Hasegawa (24-2, 8 KOs) made easy work of his challenger Cristian Faccio (15-3, 10 KOs), stopping him in the 2nd round of a scheduled 12-round title bout on Wednesday night at the Nihon Budokan, in Tokyo, Japan. Hasegawa, 27, was never troubled by the #9th ranked WBC bantamweight challenger Facio, whom he dropped twice in the second round with big left hands. On the second knockdown, the referee Toby Gibson suddenly called a halt to the bout at 2:18 of the 2nd round.

It appeared, however, that Faccio was okay, could still fight and was mostly knocked down because Hasegawa had chased Faccio around the ring and tagged him with a combination while having a running start. Nevertheless, Faccio would have likely been stopped anyway, because the first knockdown, a huge left hand blast from Hasegawa, was a huge shot that dropped Faccio on the seat of his pants at the very start of the round. From there, it was all Hasegawa as he teed-off on Faccio, hitting him with tremendous left hands as he attempted to retreat around the ring and buy some time. Read more…

By Aaron Klein: WBA/WBO cruiserweight champion David Haye (21-1, 20 KOs) received a bit of good news on when he found out that he had been received an incredible number #5 ranking in the WBC heavyweight division, bringing him only a short distance from being the number #1 mandatory for WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter’s title. According to an interview with Setanta Sports News, Haye, 27, is interested in a fight with Peter before Haye fights Wladimir Klitschko.

As usual, Haye is jumping a little ahead of himself, namely because Klitschko hasn’t of yet agreed to fight Haye, instead telling him to gain weight and get in line with the other heavyweights trying to get a bout with him. Not to be dissuaded, Haye instead intends on going for what Klitschko values the most – a heavyweight title belt – and if Haye can get Peter to give him shot, and possibly beat him, then Klitschko would naturally be more than interested in fighting Haye in order to grab another title to his growing collection. Read more…

By Eric Thomas: In the latest boxing news, Oscar De La Hoya (39-5, 30 KOs) perhaps still smarting from the rejection by light welterweight Ricky Hatton, who declined to step in and fight De La Hoya in September, as well as Floyd Mayweather Jr’s recent retirement, De La Hoya told Reuters on Wednesday, “One more and that’s it. This is my final year. I’m doing one fight and hanging up the gloves.” De La Hoya also had comments directed for Mayweather, saying “The time is running out. If Mayweather is playing these little games thinking he can catch me at an older age next year, it’s not going to happen. It has to happen by this year.”

It seems that De La Hoya hasn’t given up on his number one goal, a second fight with Mayweather, which would obviously bring De La Hoya another huge payday before he hangs up the boxing gloves. The two had been scheduled to fight on September 20th, but Mayweather blew those plans last week, when he suddenly announced his retirement from boxing, and said that it would be “permanent.” De La Hoya, whom had been counting on that fight a great deal, was left with no dancing partner for his September open date. Read more…

By Jim Dower: After watching Ricky Hatton struggle against Juan Lazcano, looking good at times and appearing a little washed up as a fighter at other times, I wonder whether Hatton should opt for a fight against super featherweight Manny Pacquiao. First of all, I don’t think it’s a fight that Hatton could win at this point in his career judging by his recent performances against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Lazcano, fights which seemed to indicate that Hatton was on the downside of his career. Most importantly, however, is the question of fairness. Read more…