By Thomas Hanson: In somewhat of a real head scratcher, David Haye (21-1, 20 KOs) has recently been pushed up to near the top of the WBO and WBC rankings, specifically to number #3 in the WBO and #5 in the WBC, all without having fought any heavyweight matches recently. I could see Haye, 27, being ranked in the bottom 15 of the heavyweight rankings because he did prove himself as a capable fighter while fighting in the cruiserweight division, but to have him vaulted all the way to near the top at number # 3 and #5, seems totally unfair to the fighters that have been standing in line all this time waiting to get a turn at one of the titles.

At the same time, it makes these ranking organizations look more than a little bad since Haye has fought only once as a heavyweight, a fight over a year ago against little-known Polish heavyweight Tomasz Bonin. Other than the fairness issue, I have no problem with Haye being ranked high in the heavyweight division, for it brings instant excitement to the division and forces the heavyweights champions, such as Wladimir Klitschko and Samuel Peter, to potentially have to deal with Haye. However, it seems kind of misguided to have Haye pushed ahead of good heavyweights like John Ruiz, Chris Arreola, Hasim Rahman, Denis Boystov and Alexander Povetkin, to name but a few, without having fought any real heavyweight competition. Read more

By Abbas Dadhiwala: After having watched Danny Williams last fight against Big John McDermott, I wasn’t at all surprised that Danny got the decision from the judges. Although it was a very close call, despite being on the end of very dubious refereeing and having been deducted three points, he somehow came through this - like he has been coming through with a never say die attitude throughout his career. Read more

By Eric Thomas: Making his first appearance as a light middleweight, undefeated contender Joe Greene (20-0, 14 KOs) struggled badly with the hard-punching Jose Miguel Torres (20-4, 18 KOs), defeating him by a harder than expected 12-round unanimous decision to win the vacant NABA light middleweight title on Wednesday night at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Hollywood, Florida. The final judges’ scores were 118-107, 118-107 and 119-106. The lopsided scores, however, didn’t give a true indication of how badly Greene looked in the fight, for he fought poorly, pawing with his jab, showing little power, a poor work rate and getting hit with some really big shots from Torres, brother of former WBO light welterweight champion Ricardo Torres.

Green knocked Torres down with a left hand in the 5th round, but it was a case of Torres being off balance rather than him actually being hurt. That didn’t stop Greene, though, from futilely attempting to score a knockout immediately after the knockdown, but it was a hopeless case as it merely gave Torres, a fighter with crude boxing skills but big power like his brother, a chance to land his huge punches. Read more

By Eric Thomas: Light middleweight contender Joel Julio (34-1, 31 KOs) destroyed the tough Jose Varela (23-4, 16 KOs) in a 6th round TKO on Wednesday night at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Hollywood, Florida. Julio, 23, ranked number #4 in the IBF and WBC, #2 in the WBO and #5 in the WBA, totally dominated Varela, knocking him down an incredible six times in the bout, until finally the fight was stopped after the 6th round by Varela’s corner. Read more

NEW YORK (Aug. 14, 2008) – The new World Boxing Council (WBC) Super Lightweight Champion Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley will defend his title for the first time against Edner “Cherry Bomb” Cherry on Saturday, Sept. 13, in the co-feature of the SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING telecast, which begins live at 9 p.m. ET/PT (delayed on the West Coast).

The main event of the world championship doubleheader features Lightweight World Champion Nate Campbell vs. Joan Guzman for Campbell’s International Boxing Federation (IBF), World Boxing Organization (WBO) and World Boxing Association (WBA) 135-pound titles.

The Bradley-Cherry fight is being presented by Gary Shaw Productions and Thompson Boxing. The main event is being promoted by Don King Productions from a venue to be determined. Read more

By Jonathan Watkins: On December 10th 2007, a bruised and beaten Mancunian lay motionless on the canvas of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. When Ricky Hatton squared up against Floyd Mayweather on that winter night, both fighters knew the long-term repercussions of a loss were going to be career changing. In the end it was Hatton’s reputation that took a turn for the worse.

By agreeing to the match-up both Hatton and Mayweather put their undefeated records on the line. As the media would publicize, somebody’s 0 had to go. For Ricky Hatton, the thought of toppling the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world was too tempting to resist. Along with keeping an unbeaten record, the future prospects if he won were to be lucrative.

However reality and predictability won in a 10thround knockout. Instead of a victory opening doors to more epic contests, Mayweather’s domination over Hatton has meant the journey of his career taking a new turn. Read more

By Jim Dower: Going from a massive fight that would have likely brought in huge PPV dollar numbers, Oscar De La Hoya has suddenly had a lowering of expectations, turning his sights to WBC light middleweight champion Sergio Mora as his final opponent of his career on December 6th. The fight, however, isn’t a solid lock because Mora still would need to defeat former light middleweight champion Vernon Forrest in their rematch on September 13th. That’s going to be a tall order for Mora, because Forrest looked to be having an off night, and even then he landed the better shots and came close to defeating Mora.

With motivation, Forrest will likely beat Mora, which will send De La Hoya scurrying about yet again looking for another opponent. I doubt for a second that De La Hoya would show any interested in fighting the tough Forrest, because he punches hard and might damage the face of De La Hoya, sending him potentially to his retirement in defeat. De La Hoya is reportedly having no trouble with discussing of the financial terms of the fight with Mora’s promoter, and it seems that they’re not adverse to the terms like Manny Pacquiao recently was this week. Read more

By Michael Lieberman: In an interview with Setanta Sports News, undefeated super middleweight Joe Calzaghe remarked that he plans on fighting one more time on November 8th against Roy Jones Jr, and then retire from the sport, saying “I’ve achieved everything I can in boxing.” The comment is more than mildly amusing considering that Jones is 39 years-old, not much of a threat to any top fighter in either the super middleweight or light heavyweight divisions. Kelly Pavlik, the undefeated WBA/WBO middleweight champion, remains out there as a bit of unfinished business for Calzaghe, who previously said that he was interested in fighting him.

Calzaghe, however, later changed his mind shortly after watching Pavlik easily dispatch his countryman Gary Lockett in three brutal rounds. In a move very similar to Oscar De La Hoya’s sudden cold feet after watching Antonio Margarito thrash Miguel Cotto in July, Calzaghe did an immediate about face, turning his attention into the relative toothless Roy Jones Jr. as an opponent. At the time, it was thought that Calzaghe would fight him and then take on Pavlik. However, Calzaghe has seemed to have all the fight sucked out, and now all he wants to do is get out of boxing following the Jones fight. It’s more than sad, because Calzaghe’s career has been disappointing, for despite his impressive record, there’s very little substance in there. Read more

By Manuel Perez: In what turned out to be a bitter pill for Golden Boy Promotions today, lightweight Manny Pacquiao walked away from an offer of 70-30 purse split with the “Golden Boy” Oscar De La Hoya, turning him down when he refused to budge in any way and come in at the 60-40 purse split that Pacquiao was seeking. Rather than take an offer that was less than what he found personally acceptable, Pacquiao, 29, decided to turn the fight down and look in another direction, possibly against Humberto Soto, a top super featherweight. De La Hoya, however, now has the perfect opportunity to show his fans how courageous he is and choose to fight Antonio Margarito, the WBA welterweight champion, who has been very interested in fighting De La Hoya as of late.

With Pacquiao out of the picture, the obvious choice for De La Hoya to make would be a fight against the dangerous Margarito. Few boxing fans, of course, would give De La Hoya much of a chance at beating Margarito, mainly because both fighters are going in difference career directions at this point. Margarito is at the top of the game, perhaps the number #1 or #2 welterweight in the division, depending on who you talk to, whereas De La Hoya would lucky if he could make to number #5. Read more

By Aaron Klein: With today’s bombshell announcement that Manny Pacquiao has pulled out of the negotiations for a fight with Oscar De La Hoya, turning down a 70-30 purse split, just who now should De La Hoya fight on December 6th? To be sure, Pacquiao still would probably be the best option, but De La Hoya doesn’t want to budge from his original offer to meet the 60-40 split that Pacquiao is interested in. In turning down the fight, Pacquiao seems to acting on principal, since he’s walking away from what would likely be none to ten million dollars that he would earn for the fight if he were to take the 70-30 split. Not bad money for any fighter to take, and a number that is three to four times what Pacquiao normally gets for his fights.

Knowing how much money he’s walking away from, you got to respect Pacquiao for sticking to his guns and not allowing himself to accept anything lower than what he asked for. This leaves De La Hoya - again - without an opponent for his last fight of his boxing career. Previously, Floyd Mayweather Jr., who had been thought to be De La Hoya’s last fight of his career, suddenly retired, leaving De la Hoya scrambling for an opponent. Read more

By William Mackay: According to reports from fightnews, Manny Pacquiao has turned down an offer of a 70-30 split from Golden Boy Promotions for a potential December 6th fight with Oscar De La Hoya. Pacquiao wanted a 60-40 split, but De La Hoya’s Golden Boy management team where firm with the original 70-30 split. Instead of taking the offer, Pacquiao will either stay at lightweight or possibly move back down to the super featherweight division where there are opponents like Edwin Valero and Juan Manuel Marquez waiting for Pacquiao.

Both De La Hoy and Pacquiao had previously been stuck on the purse split issue and glove sizes (Pacquiao wanted the smaller 8-oz gloves while De La Hoya wanted the large 10-oz gloves. However, the purse split was the real issue, as Pacquiao, by far the better fighter at this stage in his boxing career, wanted a 60-40 split given his talent and his huge popularity among boxing fans. Read more

By Abbas Dadhiwala: When Audley Harrison won the Olympic Heavyweight Gold Medal in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, he should have been a World Champion within 4 years, but that was not the case and what many believed the start a journey that would lead him to Unifying the Heavyweight Championship of the World just like Lennox Lewis never happened.

After the A-Force won the Gold Medal, he was awarded an MBE and had promoters from all over the World clamoring for his services, these included Don King, Bob Arum and Frank Warren, but Audley decided to go it alone and cut out the middle man. The BBC paid him a million dollars for his first 10 fights and this seemed to be the start of the downfall for Harrison. Read more

By Sean McDaniel: After taking a brutal beating at the hands of punching dynamo Antonio Margarito on July 26th, there are a great many questions from boxing fans about the future of former WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (32-1, 26 KOs), about whether he’ll ever recover from the savage beating he took from Margarito on that night. To be sure, it was the type of beating that often stays with a fighter for the rest of their days, haunting them both mentally and physically, lessening their ability to take punches without going down - or in the case of Cotto, dropping to a knee multiple times to signal surrender at the hands of his conqueror.

I think even under the best of circumstances in with Cotto being matched carefully for a year or two, he still might not be the same fighter that he was previously. He took too many head shots in the fight, and the damage may have been a little too much for him to shake off the effects in such a short period of time. The brain heals more slowly than any other organ, both physically and mentally, and it will be a major work for Cotto to recover from the type of fight that Margarito put him through. In the rumor mill, Cotto has come out saying that he’d be interested in a fight with Kermit Cintron, a fighter with even more power than Cotto or Margarito. Read more

By Abbas Dadhiwala: I think the notion that to succeed in boxing in this country you need to join Frank Warren may not be all correct but it would be a great help when you have the man inducted into boxing’s hall of fame by your side. If we take it back to before Frank was a boxing promoter he started the The National Boxing Council, allowing the toughest fighters in Britain to legally go head to head. You had fighters from London meeting Irish fighters for often bloody and explosive battles. He made his cousin Lenny Mclean a known figure, not just in Britain but throughout the world. Frank Warren has guided some of Britain’s best known boxers through their careers and landed them title shots these include Prince Naseem Hamed, Joe Calzaghe, Ricky Hatton, Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn.

If you look at some of the other British promoters, you’ll notice that none of them will ever scale the heights Frank has, as most of their shows are put on in hotels or small arenas compared to Frank who has put boxing promotions at Millenium Stadium, MEN arena, O2 arena and many others. David Haye is a fine example as he had only fought in front of a small crown mainly at the York Hall until he fought Enzo Maccarinelli at the O2 arena. Read more

By Aaron Klein: Usually what a fighter says is tuned out by boxing fans and the larger public the moment that they lose relevance, like for instance when they’re no longer successful in the ring. In the case of former middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins (48-5-1, 32 KOs), who has lost three out of his last five fights, we may be seeing a shining example of just that taking place. At 43, the old skills, speed and power are on the decline, and the energy and vitality that made Hopkins so good in the early of his boxing career now seem to be on the wane, gone perhaps forever.

When his mouth roars, it doesn’t hold the kind of power that it once did before he started losing with great regularity. Now, going into his fight against the young, 26 year-old, unbeaten, power-punching Kelly Pavlik, who has stopped 30 of his 34 opponents, it’s hard to keep from erupting in laughter to hear Hopkins still making bold statements. Read more

By Scott Gilfoid: It’s funny how a fight with Oscar De La Hoya has a way of adding a big boost to the career’s of certain boxers. This was never more apparent than in the case of former super featherweight Steve Forbes (33-6, 9 KOs) who will be getting a shot against the WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (22-0, 19 KOs) on September 27th at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California. Forbes, 31, a fighter with almost zero power, has very little chance of pulling off an upset against the faster, and much more powerful Berto. In fact, it will probably be a minor miracle if Forbes is still around to here the final bell.

He’s a good fighter, but he’s hopelessly out of his league in the welterweight division and both too small and weak to compete against the big punchers in the division like Berto. Although he’s only an inch shorter than Berto at 5′7″, he doesn’t have the immense power to make up for his lack of size against the bigger welterweights. It’s a wonder that he even got the fight with Berto, considering that Forbes lost almost every round of his fight with De La Hoya, losing by a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision to the Golden Boy. Read more

By Michael Lieberman: Undefeated super middleweight Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) has made it no secret that he’d like to retire with his undefeated record intact, and with his boxing legacy unblemished with any ugly defeats that would mar his record. In the past several months, however, he’s been pursued steadily by unbeaten WBO/WBC middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (34-0, 30 KOs), who has gone to great lengths in order to try and land a fight with him. Even though Pavlik is the smaller fighter, he’s willing to take the risky bout because he knows that he’ll ultimately earn more respect from the boxing public, and be rewarded by receiving even bigger paydays should he come out on the winning end of such a fight.

Calzaghe, though, has opted to take the safe route, taking a nice comfortable bout against the totally shot Roy Jones Jr. on November 8th, at the Madison Square Garden, in New York City, New York. It’ll give Calzaghe, who wants to get as much money he can before retiring from boxing, a nice payday at a minimum of risk. The drawback to that, however, is that it’s not a fight that the boxing public, in large part, want to see, with most of them preferring the try and shut the trap of Pavlik by any means necessary. Read more

By Manuel Perez: Felix Trinidad (42-3, 35 KOs) has always been one of my favorite fighters, a warrior that never gave an inch, even in losses to Winky Wright, Roy Jones Jr. and Bernard Hopkins. After seeing Miguel Cotto (32-1, 26 KOs) twice take a knee against Antonio Margarito in their recent fight on July 26th, I could only imagine would Trinidad must have been thinking when he saw it. Believe me, Trinidad would have never taken a knee. He might have lost to a fighter as fierce and determined as Margarito, although I’m not so certain that would happen, but I can’t see him ever taking a knee once, let alone twice like Cotto did.

Trinidad in his prime would have rather gone down swinging rather than to yield the white flag of surrender and submit by taking a knee. I know of course that people will say that Cotto didn’t actually quit, that his trainer waived towel signaling for the fight to be stopped, but taking a knee two times is as close as you can get to surrendering in battle. Trinidad fought his heart out in every fight, winning some and losing some, but with him you always felt that he would go down swinging and that he wouldn’t just give up when things got rough in the ring. If it had been Trinidad in the ring with Margarito, he would have fought until the very last ounce of his energy was gone, and made Margarito take him out the old fashion way - with his fists. Perhaps this is the new generation of boxers or something, because I don’t understand it myself. Read more

By Michael Lieberman: With the recent news of Ricky Hatton and his long-time Billy Graham going there separate ways, I don’t think for a second that this is going to fix Hatton’s many problems in his boxing career. For me, it seems like a cry for help, a desperate move on Hatton’s part to try and regain what is probably lost forever. Changing trainers at this point, something I wouldn’t recommend him doing, isn’t going to solve Hatton’s problems and start making him good again like he was earlier in his career. Let’s face it - what made Hatton good in the beginning was his high energy way of fighting, which was fueled in part by his youth.

Once his youth and stamina was compromised by age and a fast pace lifestyle, then we saw the best part of Hatton taken away. What was left was his bad flaws, such as his tendency to come lunching in with his typical charging attacks. Read more

By Manuel Perez: Using a body attack which unfortunately consisted of a high number of punches that strayed below the belt, super flyweight Jose Lopez (37-7-2, 31 KOs) stopped Oscar Andrade (36-34-2, 18 KOs) in the 7th round of a scheduled 10-round bout at Coliseo Antonio R. Barcelo, in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. Lopez, 36, put Andrade down three times, once in the 6th and twice in the 7th, seemingly all with low blows. The referee, perhaps, was shielded from all of the blows, for he seemed to miss each one, and counted them as knockdowns.

Lopez also dropped Andrade, 33, with a nice low blow in the 5th round, although this time the referee got it right and scored it as a low blow. Lopez had been working the midsection of Andrade for most of the fight, but it wasn’t until the 5th round when he suddenly began straying low with great regularity and force. The second low blow in the 6th, from a big left hook, did a lot of damage to Andrade, who stayed down for a considerable amount of time trying to recover from the shot. In the 7th round, Lopez wasted no time and landed another combination both of which landed low, sending Andrade down again. At this point a point was deducted from Lopez. Read more