By Dan Ambrose: Undefeated junior middleweight prospect Joe Greene (19-0, 14 KOs) had a harder than expected fight on Wednesday night, stopping last minute replacement Joshua Okine (18-4-1, 12 KOs) in the 9th round of a scheduled 10-round bout at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Hollywood, Florida. Greene, the 2004 National Golden Gloves Middleweight champion, struggled early on with his accuracy, ultimately costing him a point in the 2nd round after the referee penalized him after his 2nd low blow in the round. This had the effect of changing Green’s offensive fighting strategy, which usually includes a lot of body punches, causing him to throw next to zero body shots in the remainder of the fight.

Greene also took a lot more shots in the fight than he normally does, as he seemed unable to prevent the southpaw Okine from landing an occasional powerful left hand. In the later rounds of the fight, Greene, 22, seemed distracted, often looking out into the audience as he fought. As a consequence, Greene was hit on a number of occasions with shots that he probably wouldn’t have if he had stayed focused exclusively on his opponent in from of him. Read more

By Dan Ambrose: Former IBF light welterweight champion Juan Urango (20-1-1, 16 KOs) won a stunning 4th round KO of the tough Carlos Wilfredo Vilches (53-8-2, 31 KOs) of a scheduled 21-round IBF light welterweight title eliminator on Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Hollywood, Florida on Friday night. Also on the card, welterweight contender David Estrada (22-4, 13 KOs) stopped a badly overmatched Alexander Pacheco Quiroz (14-6-1, 12 KOs) in the 2nd round.

Urango, 27, from Colombia, was making his third fight since losing his IBF light welterweight title in a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision to Ricky Hatton in August 2007. Despite not having done much since that time, beating Nasser Athumani in a war in which he was hurt early on, and then afterwards defeating Marty Robbins, the powerful punching Urango found himself in a IBF title eliminator against the veteran Carlos Willfredo Vilches, 31, for a chance at taking on champion Paulie Malignaggi. It was immediately clear early in the first that Vilches didn’t have the power or the chin to be able to stay in against the hard-punching Urango for long. Read more

By Eric Thomas: Based on how his career has evolved, winning championship belts in the super featherweight, lightweight, junior welterweight, welterweight and junior middleweight divisions, should Floyd Mayweather Jr. (39-0, 25 KOs) be considered as an all time great in boxing? Although his career is far from finished at this point, and he still has a lot left to prove before he’s finished, is his credentials good enough to match up with other boxers such as Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammed Ali and Jake Lamotta? There’s the some who would say no, suggesting that Mayweather saw fit to side step around the best in each division, staying away from fighters like Kostya Tszyu, Miguel Cotto, Paul Williams and Antonio Margarito.

For that, Mayweather has come up lacking, instead taking on fighters a shade below each of them, yet still saying that he’s the best in the division without having beaten the actual top guy. However, I’m not sure whether Mayweather needs to waste his time with trying to fight all of the top fighters when he probably already knows in his mind that he’s better. He doesn’t have to prove it to the fans, if he already knows inside that these fighters are beneath his dignity to even bother fighting in the first place. To be sure, I don’t see Tszyu as being able to hold a candle to Mayweather, for he’d likely get beaten just as easy as Hatton did, probably even worse than him. Read more

By Michael Lieberman: As light welterweight Ricky Hatton’s (43-1, 31 KOs) prepares for his bout against Juan Lazcano (37-4-1, 27 KOs) on May 24th in Manchester, the question remains whether Hatton is still the same fighter he once was after suffering a devastating 10th round stoppage to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in December 2007. Many fighters, especially ones that were previously unbeaten, are often never the same after experiencing particularly bad losses. In Hatton’s case, his loss was made even worse in that the entire world was watching and it was so badly one-sided.

Afterwards, Hatton looked humiliated, almost like an ostrich wanting to hide his head in the sand but finding only hard canvas as he roots around looking for a hole to place his head. Perhaps it was only Hatton, as well as a few delusional fans of his, that felt that he had a winning chance against a fighter of Mayweather’s class. For most people, it was a given that Hatton would not only lose but lose in spectacular fashion. In that, Hatton succeeded. However, it’s the psychological part that concerns me. I have no doubt that his body and his brain wasn’t damaged by the knockout loss, yet I wonder if the loss has effected his confidence. Read more

By Manuel Perez: Unbeaten light middleweight prospect Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (35-0-1, 28 KOs) continues on with his glacial move towards title contention when he takes on undefeated Italian Tobia Giuseppe Loriga (24-0-1, 6 KOs) in a scheduled 12-round bout for the WBC Continental Americas light middleweight title this Saturday night at the Plaza de Toros Juriquilla, in Queretaro, Queretaro, Mexico. Incredibly, the bout will be shown on PPV, costing $34.95 to watch despite what I consider to be a weak undercard of Hector Velazquez vs. Elio Rojas, Bernabe Conception vs. Torrence Danials and Hector Camacho Jr. vs. Kenny Kost.

For my part, none of these names on the card makes me feel inclined to want to fork over the $39.95 to see the fight, least of all Chavez Jr., 22, who has looked anything but a future champion at light middleweight. I don’t want to be hard on the guy, because he is, after all, still essentially fighting his amateur fights as a professional in that he never had an amateur boxing career. However, even for an amateur, I’ve yet to see any comparisons whatsoever with him and his famous father Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., who piled up many titles along with over 100 wins in his great career. Read more

By Dan Ambrose: Not satisfied with a splendid career at heavyweight, one in which he won two heavyweight titles over the likes of Vitali Klitschko and the great Evander Holyfield, a much skinnier Chris Byrd (40-4-1, 21 KOs) looks to resurrect his career as a light heavyweight. Byrd, 37, who holds wins over such excellent fighters like David Tua, Jameel McCline, Fres Oquendo, DaVarryl Williamson and the aforementioned Vitali Klitschko, isn’t satisfied now that his heavyweight career appears to be on the downside and wants to continue fighting in the 175 lb light heavyweight division.

For most heavyweights, this would be all but impossible for them to accomplish, for I scarcely need to remind you readers that it would involve for a heavyweight to take off 25 lbs, at the least, to get down to the 175 lb weight limit for the light heavyweights. Most heavyweights weigh much more than 200, which makes this all but impossible for them to even consider without starving themselves drastically in order to accomplish this feet. Byrd, however, a natural light heavyweight, walks around at 175-180 pounds in between his heavyweight fights, so this wasn’t a problem at all for him. Read more

By Scott Gilfoid: Last Saturday, former light heavyweight and middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins gave perhaps one of his worst fighting displays in his career when he lost a dull 12-round split decision to Joe Calzaghe at the Tomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hopkins looked nothing like his old self, as his once high work rate was reduced to a crawl, as he struggled to land a measily 10 punches per round against Calzaghe. I don’t buy into the idea that Hopkins was fighting that way out of a strategy he was using in order to slow the fight down.

On the contrary, I don’t think Hopkins had the stamina, legs or youth to fight all out for three minutes of every round. That was never more apparent until late in the fight when Hopkins began to clinch even more as he began to look positively exhausted in the ring. When Hopkins went down from a seemingly harmless low blow, and needed several minutes to recuperate from the shots, it seemed painfully obvious that he was trying to stall so that he could get his depleted energy back. Read more

By Eric Thomas: I still can’t get over the fact that Joe Calzaghe was given the decision the other night against Bernard Hopkins. It seems as if only one of the referees got the fight correct, scoring the fight 114-113 for Hopkins, although even that score was too generous for Calzaghe, because Hopkins had landed the much harder punches in the fight compared to Calzaghe’s slapping shots. Also, Hopkins had done an extraordinary job of slowing down Calzaghe’s high volume punch output to virtually a trickle during most of the fight. Read more

By Erik Schmidt: In the past week, we’ve been hearing a lot about Joe Calzaghe considering a fight with Roy Jones Jr. for his next and perhaps final fight of his career. However, I think Calaghe is forgetting an opponent that is even more deserving than Jones, and that’s Antonio Tarver, who recently defeated IBF light heavyweight champion Clinton Woods by an easy one-sided unanimous decision a couple of weeks ago.

Tarver, now 39, is at the top of his game and perhaps the best light heavyweight in the division right now, whereas Jones, also 39, has looked poor in recent years, losing twice to Tarver, once to Glen Johnson and looked mediocre against a faded Felix Trinidad. Tarver, on the other hand, looked positively superb against Woods, whom he dominated thoroughly, winning every round of the fight.

People had been saying that Tarver was over the hill going into the bout with Woods but he quickly proved all his doubters wrong. Calzaghe, who is considered to be one of the greatest of all time fighters in boxing, can’t lay claim to that title unless he beats Tarver, and one or two other champions before he’s finished. Read more

By Michael Lieberman: Junior middleweight contender Evans Ashira (29-3, 15 KOs) stopped former EBU middleweight champion Mamadou Thiam (42-7, 39 KOs) in the 6th round of a scheduled 12-round bout to win the vacant Universal Boxing Organization InterContinental Light Middleweight at the Frederikssund Hallen, in Frederikssund, Denmark. Ashira, a former super middleweight title challenger, ended matters with a flurry of punches in the 6th round catching Thiam with a big left hook to the head that sent him to the canvas. Referee Soren Saugmann then stopped the fight at 1:05 of the 6th round.

Both fighter traded huge bombs in the opening two rounds, with neither fighter taking a backwards step for a second. Thiam, a knockout artist accustomed to scoring quick KOs in the early rounds, appeared to get the better of Ashira in the first round, hitting him with big uppercuts and hooks to the head. Ashira showed a good chin, taking the shots without showing signs if being hurt. Read more

By Erik Schmidt: Fighting for the WBA interim welterweight title, undefeated Ukrainian Yuriy Nuzhnenko (27-0-1, 13 KOs) fought to a 10-round technical draw with Irving Garcia (16-3-2, 8 KOs) from Puerto Rico, after the fight was stopped in the 10th round due to swelling on the forehead of Nuzhnenko, 31, from a prior head butt on Saturday night at the Sports Palace, in Kiev, Ukraine. It went to the cards and the final scores were 96-95, for Nuzhnenko, 95-95 and 95-95.

I had Garcia winning nine of the ten rounds quite easily, outpunching and out-landing Nuzhnenko in every round of the fight. The decision was bad, of course, but considering the location of the fight – in Nuzhnenko’s native Ukraine – it came to no surprise that he would get at least a draw out of it. However, the fight wasn’t close by a long shot. Garcia, 29, dominated the fight from the opening moments, showing an excellent jab and straight right hand that he was able hit Nuzhnenko with constantly in the fight, swelling up his face badly along the way. Read more

By Robert Cavender: Undefeated heavyweight prospect Alexander Ustinov (9-0, 8 KOs) easily defeated journeyman Sedreck Fields (22-37-2, 18 KOs) by an 8-round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Sports Palace, in Kiev, Ukraine. Ustinov, 31, a 6’7” 300 lb heavyweight from Belarus, now promoted reportedly by K2 East, the company owned by Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, had an easy time defeating Fields. Ustinov, a former kicking boxing star and K1 participant, dropped Fields in the 2nd round with a right hand. However, he was unable to finish him off due to the constant movement of Fields. Ustinov, fighting like a larger, slightly heavier version of Vitali Klitschko, calmly picked Fields apart all fight long, hitting him with jabs, hooks and straight right hands while showing patience at Fields’ constant clowning around in the ring, and playing to the crowd.

Fields, 35, rarely initiated his own offense, instead focusing mostly on taunting Ustinov, letting him know that his punches weren’t bothering him and constantly waving for him to come forward and attack him. At that, Fields’ needn’t have bothered, for Ustinov was hitting him repeatedly all fight long with excellent hooks and jabs to the head. Read more

By Aaron Klein: Former BBBofC British light middleweight champion Ryan Rhodes (39-4, 27 KOs) recaptured his title with a 9th round KO of champion Gary Woolcombe (25-2, 10 KOs) on Friday night to recapture his title at the York Hall, in Bethnal Green, London. Rhodes, 31, who had last held the BBBofC British light middleweight title 10 years ago in 1997, incredibly regained it with a stunning 9th round KO of the young 25 year-old champion Woolcombe.

Rhodes, the much more powerful puncher of the two, dominated almost every round of the fight and dropped Woolcombe in the 6th and 9th rounds. The knockdown in the 9th round, a viscous clubbing right hand to the side of Woolcombes’ head, dropped him to the canvas where he lay flat on his back. Referee Mickey Vann didn’t bother to count for Woolcombe was badly hurt and stayed down for several minutes. The fight was officially stopped at 0:37 of the round 9th round. Read more

By Erik Schmidt: Former 2000 Olympic Gold Medallist Audley Harrison (22-3, 17 KOs) returned to his winning ways on Saturday night with a 5th round stoppage over American Jason Barnett (10-7, 4 KOs) at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday night. The end came suddenly when Harrison, 36, landed a powerful left uppercut to the midsection of Barnett, 33, dropping him to one knee. Barnett beat the count, getting up at eight but referee Russell Mora had seen enough and stopped the one-sided fight at 1:48 of the 5th round. Read more

IBF #3 cruiserweight contender Tomasz Adamek secured a world title opportunity today by stopping IBF #7 contender O’ Neil Bell at Spodek Arena in Katowice, Poland, it was announced today by Main Events CEO Kathy Duva. Adamek floored Bell in the opening round and then schooled the former undisputed world cruiserweight champion for the next six rounds, forcing Bell to retire on his stool prior to round eight (TKO 7).

Following the bout Adamek made his plans clear: “Next is Cunningham and then a unification bout against David Haye.”

Adamek’s victory earned him the IBF’s #1 mandatory position. Both IBF champion Steve Cunningham and Adamek are mandated to battle each other in their next bouts.

At the time of the stoppage all three judges had Adamek ahead on the scorecards (69-63, 68-64, and 67-65). After surrendering following the completion of round seven, Bell complained of “dizziness” and said he “felt ill”. Read more

By Eric Thomas: In the latest news, former champion Roy Jones Jr. (52-4, 38 KOs) made it clear after last night’s win by Joe Calzaghe over Bernard Hopkins that he wants to fight Calzaghe next, even if it means having to travel all the way to Wales to make the fight happen. The fight, if it happens, would likely be as big as the Hopkins bout despite Jones, 39, being a level below Hopkins at this stage in his career. The question is, would Calzaghe, 36, be interested in a bout with Jones? He has already said that he wants to be well paid in his last bout of his career, and a bout with Jones would figure to pay more than any other fight that Calzaghe would have on the horizon against one of the younger stars in the boxing world like Kelly Pavlik.

Jones reportedly wasn’t impressed with the Calzaghe-Hopkins bout, feeling that he could have done a better job than Hopkins, who mainly held onto Calzaghe, slowing the fight down, and landing mostly one shot at a time in the bout. Indeed, that would be easy to say, because even though Jones has slowed down somewhat in terms of hand speed, he still throws fast combinations and hasn’t shown the tendency to cling on his opponents like Hopkins has in recent years. Read more

By Nate Anderson: Undefeated Romanian light heavyweight contender Adrian Diaconu (25-0, 15 KOs) defeated American Chris Henry (21-1, 17 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision tonight to win the WBC light heavyweight interim title at the Sala Polivalenta, in Bucharest, Romania. Diaconu, 29, ranked #1 in the WBC, appeared to land the cleaner punches all fight long and rarely had trouble with Henry. The final judges scores were 115-113, 115-113 and 116-113. Read more

By Chris Stein: Undefeated Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) survived a 1st round knockdown tonight to come back and pound out a 12-round split decision over former middleweight/light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (48-5, 32 KOs) at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Beyond the first round, there was little suspense in the fight for Hopkins, 43, quickly adopted the boring tried but true grappling/clinching style of former heavyweight champion John Ruiz, as Hopkins slowed the fight to a crawl with his two punches followed by a clinch style of fighting.

It was no match for Calzaghe’s speed and combinations, though Hopkins likely knew that he had no chance other than to take the fight into a boring wrestling match in order to have any kind of chance. The final scores of the fight were 114-113 for Hopkins, and 115-112 & 116-111 for Calzaghe. The 114-113 score was laughable, because Hopkins did little in the fight other than pot shotting and dulling up the bout, and couldn’t stand up to Calzaghe when the two stood at center ring. Te more truer score was the 116-111, but even that was being far to generous to Hopkins, who seemed to feign being hurt by low blows in the fight, as if looking for a hand out from the referee Joe Cortez, a referee noted for penalizing fighters for fouls. Read more

By Dan Ambrose: Number #3 ranked IBF cruiserweight contender Tomasz Adamek (34-1, 22 KOs) was far too fast for the former undisputed cruiserweight champion O’Neil Bell (26-4-1, 24 KOs) tonight, stopping him when the 35 year-old Bell failed to come out for the 8th round at the Spodek, in Katowice, Poland.. Bell was down in the 1st round, having been hit with a sharp left hand from Adamek. The punch appeared to have caught Bell off guard as he was coming in. However, it seemed to give an indication of how things would go for Bell, who was simply too slow to compete with the quicker, more skilled former light heavyweight champion Adamek. Read more

By Peter Kurth: If you’re all that familiar with Bernard Hopkins (48-4, 32 KOs) and know how he typically fights, you already know that this Saturday’s fight with undefeated super middleweight Joe Calzaghe (44-0, 32 KOs) is going to be bloody and filled with a certain amount of fouls. That, I’m afraid, is almost a given. The question is how many and whether the fouls will have an effect on the mindset of the 36 year-old Calzaghe. On the whole, I fully expect Calzaghe to be cut in the first three to four rounds, likely a bad cut from either a head butt or an elbow.

The cut, especially occurring so early in the fight, will put Calzaghe into a position where he will very likely have to either fight harder, as he attempts to build up a lead in order to be ahead in case the fight is stopped prematurely due to the severity of the cut or have the opposite effect, where Calzaghe backs off to try and protect the cut. Read more