ShoBox: The New Generation returns to the United Kingdom on May 10, 2008, with an outstanding world title showdown and a promising undercard bout featuring two undefeated prospects..

On a special Saturday night edition of the popular, prospect-oriented SHOWTIME boxing series, World Boxing Council (WBC) Super Lightweight Champion Junior Witter will defend his crown for the third time when he takes on WBC No. 1 contender Timothy Bradley at the Trent FM Arena in Nottingham, England (same day tape delay at 10:45 p.m. ET/PT on SHOWTIME). Read more

By Scott Gilfoid: French cruiserweight Jean Marc Monrose (24-1, 15 KOs) overwhelmed champion Johny Jensen (23-1-2, 10 KOs), stopping him in the 1st round on Saturday night to win the EBU (European) cruiserweight title at the Palais des Sports, Marseille, in Bouches-du-Rhone, France. Ranked #8th in the WBA cruiserweight division, Monrose, 26, immediately pounced on the Danish Jensen from the opening bell, bum rushing him and hitting him with a huge left hook to the head.

After a flurry of shots, which saw Jensen visit the canvas once, the referee stepped in and halted the fight at 1:30 of the 1st round, with Jensen taking severe punishment against the ropes. Jensen looked battered, his left eye swollen and he seemed disoriented, as if he didn’t know what had hit him. Perhaps he wasn’t figuring that Monrose would start out so quickly, Jensen never could make any adjustments to counteract Monrose’s furious first round attack and ended up losing badly to the French fighter. Read more

By Aaron Klein: Light welterweight prospect Victor Ortiz (21-1-1, 16 KOs) overcame an early third round scare in which he was knocked down to come back and knockout journeyman fighter Dairo Esalas (30-13, 24 KOs) in the 5th round off a scheduled 10-round bout at the Home Deport Center, in Carson, California. Ortiz, 21, looking a lot like a poor man’s version of welterweight champion Miguel Cotto, knocked Esalas down three times in the bout, the last time in the fifth round with a searing right hand that flattened Esalas for the 10-count. Oddly enough, it wasn’t Ortiz who was the harder puncher of the two, for Esalas appeared to have the better punch, at least with his right hand.

Obviously, the high percentage of KOs on Esalas’ record was indicative of him having some major power but it was a bit of surprise that he would turn out to be the better puncher than Ortiz, considering how hyped the young 21 year-old prospect has become in the last year with many people seeing him as a can’t miss future champion in the light welterweight division. Whatever the case, Ortiz can be excused for getting dropped by a puncher like Esalas, especially because Ortiz seemed to anxiously trying to stop him as early as possible, perhaps to make a good impression due to this fight being on the undercard of the Oscar De La Hoya vs. Steve Forbes bout. Read more

By Manuel Perez: Welterweight contender Jeffrey Resto (22-2, 13 KOs) defeated Hector Alatorre (15-4, 5 KOs) by a 10-round majority decision and lightweight contender Vicente Escobedo (17-1, 11 KOs) won an easy 10-round unanimous decision over Roberto David Arrieta (27-13-4, 10 KOs) on Friday night at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California. Resto, 31, appeared to win all 10-rounds of the fight, quite easily actually. The final judges’ scores were 99-92, 99-92 and 95-95, giving Resto the win by majority decision. Read more

By Dave Lahr: Undefeated female flyweight prospect Asieye Ozlem Sahin (6-0, 3 KOs) kept her unbeaten record intact with a four-round unanimous decision over Ukrainian Nataliya Bermas (0-2) on Saturday night at the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle, in Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, on Saturday night. Sahin, 31, won every round of the right and had a relatively easy time pounding out the decision over the much slower Bermas.

Sahin was giving up a few inches up height to Bermas, who used her long reach to land labs in the early going of the fight. However, Sahin quickly closed the distance and began landing hard right and left hands to the head of Bermas. For her part, Bermas was unable to fully take advantage of her height advantage due to her poor hand speed and power, which enabled Sahin to move in on her without worrying about getting hit with fast shots. Once inside the long reach of Bermas, Sahin landed some nice shots to the head of Bermas, before moving once again to the safety of the outside. In between rounds, Sahin elected to stand, something that is becoming more and more common in boxing. Read more

By Dave Lahr: Alesia Graf (21-1, 9 KOs) successfully defended her WIBF Women’s International Boxing Federation super flyweight title and Global Union Female super flyweight title on Saturday night with a 5th round stoppage of Brazilian Rosillette Dos Santos (10-3, 7 KOs) at the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle, in Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttember, Germany. Graff, 27, originally from Belarus and now living and fighting out of Germany, staggered Santos with two right hands in the 5th and then finished her off with a sweeping left hook to the head, prompting for referee Andre Van Grootenbruel to step in and halt the fight at 1:32 of the 5th round. Graf totally dominated virtually every minute of the fight, blooding Santos nose and pounding her constantly with jabs and a large amount of combinations to the head.

Though Santos was only giving up two inches in height, her arms were considerably shorter than Graf’s and her hand-speed was also considerably lesser than Grafs. With that much of a handicap in the fight, Santos’ only hope was for her to score with big shots. Unfortunately for her, that was a department in which Graf was also superior, having considerably more power than her Brazilian opponent. Graf used her long jabs to pound away at Santos in the first round, steering her around the ring like a mini bull whichever way she pleased. Read more

Connecticut super-bantamweight contender Mike “Machine” Oliver (21-0, 7 KO’s) will now take on 14-year, Colombian veteran Reynaldo Lopez (28-5-2, 19 KO’s) on this week’s installment of ESPN2’s Wednesday Night Fights, to be held at The Roxy in Boston, Massachusetts.

Oliver’s originally slated bout was to be against Julio Zarate, in an IBF Title Eliminator, but that fight fell through during the negotiation process. Read more

By Nate Anderson: Fighting on the undercard of Oscar De La Hoya vs. Steve Forbes, undefeated super middleweight Daniel Jacobs (6-0, 6 KOs) easily put in the best performance of the fight with a stunning 1st round TKO of Jose Pena (2-3-1, 2 KOs) , stopping him at 0:53 of the 1st round on Saturday night at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California. Jacobs knocked Pena down twice in the round and after the second knockdown the fight was stopped due to Pena being too badly hurt to continue fighting.

At the start of the fight, Jacobs wasted little time in going right after Pena, blasting him powerful combinations to the head and body, mixing him punches up with expert precision. The power of the shots was extraordinary, eclipsing that of other top prospects such as Pat Quillin and Andre Dirrell by a wide margin. It was clear that Pena wouldn’t be able to take more than a handful of these monstrous shots without going down under fire, for Jacobs was throwing punches that would decapitate an opponent. A few seconds later, after taking a series of hard lefts to the head, Pena was dropped to the canvas after taking a huge left hand to the body followed immediately by a left hook to the head. Read more

By Chris Williams: Making his first defense of his WBA cruiserweight title, Firat Arslan (29-3-1, 18 KOs) won a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision over American Darnell Wilson (23-7-3, 20 KOs) on Saturday night at the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle, in Stuttgart, Baden-Wuttemberg, Germany. It was thought that Wilson, 33, might have a good chance at beating the talented, but limited Arslan. However, Wilson seemed hampered by the over-sized gloves that he was wearing, which were huge looking, obviously meant more for defense than for offense.

It was immediately clear that Wilson was going to have problems landing his shots, one because of the high guard that Arslan was holding in front of his face, protecting himself from the heavy shots of Wilson, and two because Wilson’s hand speed was very poor. That’s not to say that Arslan’s was much better, because he too has dismal handspeed. However, in Arslan’s case, he’s mostly an arm puncher, almost unable to put his body behind his shots for some reason. Not sure why, because he looks as if he could punch a hole through a wall with all his muscles, but in this case, his muscles seem to prevent him from throwing hard shots instead of working in his favor. Indeed, Arslan didn’t even try to punch hard, mostly throwing jabs for the entire fight. Read more

By Manuel Perez: Undefeated welterweight prospect Danny Garcia (6-0, 5 KOs) pitched a six-round shut out on Saturday night, beating Nicaraguan fighter Julio Gamboa (28-13-2. 17 KOs) by a lopsided 6-round unanimous decision on the undercard of the Oscar De La Hoya vs. Steve Forbes bout at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California. Garcia, only 20, landed at will with very heavy shots for all six rounds, eventually knocking Gamboa down at the bell with a big right hand. However, Gamboa made it up and the fight ended there as time ran out in the fight. Despite easily winning the fight, the knockout artist Garcia seemed frustrated that he couldn’t stop the strong-chinned Gamboa despite putting everything he had in trying to get Gamboa out of there.

At the start of the fight in the 1st round, Garcia was all over Gamboa, hitting him with huge shots in a lightning fast fashion. Most fighters, perhaps even a champion or two, might have gone down from the heavy shots that Garcia was throwing in the opening round, but not Gamboa, who took the punches without showing any signs of being hurt. Read more

By Eric Thomas: In an excruciatingly dull fight, Oscar De La Hoya (39-5, 30 KOs) won a boring one-sided 12-round unanimous decision over the much smaller Steve Forbes (33-6, 9 KOs) tonight at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, Nevada. The fight was wholly without any drama, as Forbes was, as expected, far too small and weak to present much of fight to the taller De La Hoya. The only thing unexpected about the fight was the fact that De La Hoya failed to tire out like he usually does in the second half of his fights. But, then again, Forbes, 31, did little in terms of applying any kind of pressure on De La Hoya, in a since letting De La Hoya fight at a snail’s pace which allowed him to fight without fading as is his custom.

In the final two rounds when it was obvious that Forbes, who was hopelessly behind at this time in the fight, wouldn’t be able to stop De La Hoya, it seemed to have the effect of making Oscar kind of cocky as he looked as if he were fighting a champion rather than an unranked smaller fighter who was fighting out of his weight class. For me, I had to stifle a laugh because it was rather pathetic, as if a joke was being played on people and only a few of them were in on it. Read more

By Erik Schmidt: Undefeated heavyweight contender Alexander Dimitrenko (28-0, 18 KOs) struggled tonight in the process of stopping Puerto Rican Derric Rossy (18-2, 10 KOs) in the 5th round of a scheduled 12-round bout for the WBO Inter-Continental heavyweight title at the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle, in Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttember, Germany. Dimitrenko, 25, ranked # 2 in the WBO, had an extremely hard time landing any punches for most of the bout against the awkward Rossy. Dimitrenko appeared to lose the first three rounds mostly due to his failure to let his hands go.

Finally, in the 5th round, Dimitrenko’s power bailed him out, as he landed a big left hook the head of Rossy, dropping him to the canvas. After getting up, Rossy was immediately knocked down once again by a short left hook from Dimitrenko. After the action resumed, Dimitrenko came after him and landed a flurry of short chopping punches, most of which missed badly. However, a couple of them landed, enough for the referee Paul Thomas to step in and halt the fight at 2:58 of the 5th round. Rossy looked as if he could continue but the way that Dimitrenko was now attacking him, there was little doubt that Rossy would soon by visiting the canvas once or twice more in the round if it were to have been allowed to continue a little longer. Read more

By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli (28-2, 21 KOs) looks to return to the ring on June 28th against a still to be determined opponent. In his last fight, Maccarinelli, 27, suffered an embarrassing 2nd round TKO to David Haye at the O2 Arena, in Greenwich, London. To be sure, there’s no shame in losing to a fighter of Haye’s caliber, especially when you fight a faulty game plan going into the fight. However, the manner in which Maccarinelli lost – an utter blowout – no doubt let him feeling less than pleased with his performance on that night against Haye. It’s as if all Maccarinelli’s studious planning went completely out the window at the first sight of aggression from Haye in the first round of the fight.

Obviously, with a brutal knockout like the one that Maccarinelli experienced against Haye in which he took some very heavy shots to that head, he’ll likely want to take it easy in his first fight coming off the knockout. Indeed, instead of seeing Maccarinelli take on a top ten opponent like many of his fans would like to see him go up against, it would seem like the wiser choice for him would be a soft opponent, preferably one with next to zero power. Maccarinelli has said that he want to take on a top fighter, not wanting to go in against a soft opponent that he would feel no challenge in beating. Read more

By Michael Lieberman: As WBC light welterweight champion Junior Witter prepares for next week’s battle against #1 ranked challenger Timothy Bradley (21-0, 11 KOs) at the Nottingham Arena, in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Witter, 34, hasn’t given up on his foremost goal of facing Ricky Hatton in the near future. However, with that goal in mind, Witter is hoping to defeat Bradley, 24, in an impressive fashion, so much so that Hatton will be forced to fight him rather than to continue to ignore him like he’s done in the past three years. Witter, however, needs to not look past Bradley, who is a hard-hitting knockout artist and perhaps the best rising star in the junior welterweight division.

It’s a credit to Witter that he’s chosen to face Bradley rather than ducking him like many fighters tend to do when faced with an equally tough challenger like him. Witter, though, has never ducked a tough opponent in his career, instead opting to fight the hardest fights possible in order to further his career and learn from it in the process. Bradley has many of the same attributes that Witter has, such as blazing fast hands and an excellent air tight defense. However, Bradley hits much harder than Witter and has true one-punch power. Though Witter doesn’t hit nearly as hard as Bradley, he makes up for it by his unorthodox punching style, which makes him capable of throwing punches from all angles when his opponents least expect it. Read more

By Chris Stein: Former 2004 Olympic Bronze medalist for United States Andre Dirrell (15-0, 10 KOs) overcame a shaky start in the first round, in which he was pummeled by Anthony Hanshaw (21-2-1, 14 KOs), to come back later and stop Hanshaw in the 5th round. Along the way, Dirrell, 25, knocked Hanshaw down in the 4th round, although it appeared to be more of a push than a legitimate knockdown. It didn’t matter, because Hanshaw, 30, absorbed a great deal of punishment in the 4th and 5th rounds, before the fight was stopped after Dirrell hurt him and knocked him into the ropes where referee Pat Russell did the right thing and stepped in to stop the bout.

In the 1st round, it looked as if it were going to be an early night for Hanshaw as he trapped Dirrell against the ropes in the first 10 seconds of the round, hitting him with a hard combination that landed flush, causing Dirrell to ricochet off the ropes and touch the canvas with both gloves. The referee, partially blocked from seeing the action, missed the knockdown and let the fight resume without scoring it as a knockdown for Hanshaw. For the remainder of the round, Hanshaw spent the time overpowering the weaker Dirrell with big shots to the head with both lefts and rights and connecting often. Dirrell wasn’t helping himself any by standing with his back against the ropes and trying to counter punch. Read more

By Chet Mills: Rendall Munroe (15-1, 7 KOs) defended his EBU super bantamweight title, stopping French challenger Salem Bouaita (19-13, 6 KOs) at the end of the 7th round when Bouaita’s corner stopped the fight in between rounds. Bouaita, 33, a fighter with an usual fighting style which resembles nothing I’ve ever seen before, fought well in the first two rounds as he landed shots from every angle against the champion Munroe. However, Bouaita was never disciplined enough to keep up enough fire power to win either of the rounds despite his wild attacks in the first couple of rounds.

Munroe, 27, who recently won the EBU super bantamweight championship with a 12-round majority decision over Kiko Martinez in March 2008, used a hard left hook and right hand to keep Bouaita on the move, not wanting to stand and trade with him for long. Munroe fought much better in the 2nd round after getting a little more used to Bouaita’s wild style of fighting. However, Munroe still had huge problems landing his own shots because of Bouaita leaning forward with his hands down and moving side to side with his torso to prevent Munroe from landing. Read more

By Robert Cavender: Through no surprise, this Saturday’s bout, called “The Homecoming” between Oscar De La Hoya (38-5, 30 KOs) and former super featherweight champion Steve Forbes (33-5, 9 KOs) is failing to ignite much interest by fans judging by the lack of discussion about in on the various internet boxing websites in the past week. Here we are one day away, and one would expect there to be fairly substantial amount of discussion about the fight given the short period of time before the bout, yet almost next to zero fans seem to have much more than a passing interest in the fight.

It could be that the fans never were interested in the fight to begin with, seeing it as nothing more than an exhibition bout between a faded star, De La Hoya, and one that never has quite made his mark as of yet. It hasn’t helped De La Hoya’s case that he’s lost many of his recent fights, three out of give to be exact, and the ones that he has won haven’t been over top fighters. Yet with all that, people are expected to be interested in seeing De La Hoya fight, if nothing more than because of the fighter he once was. Read more

By Nate Anderson: In the latest boxing news, former WBA light welterweight champion Gavin Rees (27-1, 13 KOs) is reportedly high on the list for future opponents for the undefeated Amir Khan’s (17-0, 13 KOs) next bout on June 21st. Previous to Rees recent 12th round TKO title loss to Andreas Kotelnik on March 22nd, there had been talk of a potential bout between Khan and Rees, but it had come to nothing, with Rees opting for a bout with the Ukrainian Kotelnik. Whatever the case, if Khan decides upon Rees as his next opponent, he’ll be taking tremendous leap up in competition for Rees is light years better than the easy C-level fodder that Khan has fought up to this point his career.

Rees, 27, is like a carbon copy replicate of Ricky Hatton, only without all the hype that Hatton has behind him. It would be a very tough matchup for Khan, who has shown to be a little chinny since turning professional in 2005. This would be a stern test for Khan’s tender chin and one guaranteed to see him take a lot of big shots from Rees. Read more

By Eric Thomas: Light heavyweight Bernard Hopkins (48-5-1, 32 KOs) is still understandably not happy with the outcome of his 12-round split decision loss to Joe Calzaghe on April 19th at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Specifically, Hopkins, 43, is unhappy with the scoring from judge Chuck Giampa, who happened to score the fight 116-111 for Calzaghe. That score, more than either of the two, seemed way off base considering the closeness of the fight. Hopkins is naturally upset about that score, for if Giampa had scored the fight in Hopkins’ favor, he would have won the fight.

Hopkins has reportedly suggested that the judges have occasional evaluations, to judge their competence to score the fight accurately. What Hopkins says seems to make a lot of sense, for when a person ages, their eyesight is often the first thing to go. In a sport that involves fast punches and furious action, much of it coming with a blur, it takes especially keen eyesight in order to capture all the punches being exchanges between two fighters. Read more

By Manuel Perez: With his prime well behind him in the rear view mirror, Oscar De La Hoya (38-5, 30 KOs) continues on with his once excellent career when he fights Steve Forbes (33-5, 9 KOs) on Saturday night. One wonders why after making tens of millions of dollars over his career, involving De La Hoya winning a number of championships, he would want to continue fighting when he’s lost three out of his last five bouts and looked bad in a fourth bout which he should have lost as well. I suppose the reasons are simple: Yet even more money, especially in his upcoming bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in September, which is more money than he can quickly make in his promoting business.

Aside from that, I can’t see any real reason to stick around, considering that he’s now losing virtually all his fights against top opponents. It’s like having an old race car with a shot engine and then continuously putting into a race against new cars, and coming in last each time out. Or, like an old race horse that can no longer get around the track and is beaten badly every time out. Read more