By Francisco Chantango: Recently, after seeing several fights of Filipino boxing stars super flyweight AJ Banal (17-0-1, 14 KOs) and super bantamweight Rey Baustista (25-1, 18 KOs) I’ve started to wonder whether each of these two young southpaw phenoms will eventually be future title holders in their perspective divisions. Banal, only 19, looks to be slightly the better of the two prospects, although Bautista isn’t far behind him in terms of overall talent and drive. I fully realize that Baustista was blown out in one vicious round by 27 year-old WBO super bantamweight champion Daniel Ponce De Leon (34-1, 30 KOs) in August 2007, yet I don’t hardly believe that Baustista, then only 18 years-old, was ready for such an important match as this at this early stage in his career.

In spite of his immense talent that Bautista had shown previous to that bout, beating fighters such as Giovanni Andrade, Marino Montiel, Sergio Manuel Medina, Gerardo Espinoza and Roberto Bonilla, none of these fighters could prepare him properly for the kind of all out slugging that a fighter like Ponce De Leon would be bringing into a fight with Baustista. Mainly, because Ponce De Leon is so unorthodox as a fighter. He doesn’t fight in a normal manner that most fighters do, instead he goes all out throwing punches from all angles nonstop from the opening bell until the final round of the fight. Read more

By Tony Krebs: Undefeated cruiserweight Eric Fields (11-0, 9 KOs) will return to action on Saturday night against Ola Afolabi (11-1-3, 4 KOs) in a scheduled 12-round bout for the little-known vacant North American Boxing Association (NABO) at the Emerald Queen Casino, in Tacoma, Washington. Fields, 21, the 2005 and 2006 National Golden Gloves Heavyweight champion, recently flattened former IBF cruiserweight champion Kelvin Davis in the 1st round on January 18th, 2008, in a one-sided bout from the opening bell. Fields wasted little time in pouncing on Davis, after studying him for a second; he then proceeded to tag him with a monstrous right that dropped Davis to the canvas.

Upon getting up, Davis was met with a mad horde of punches from the 6′2″ Fields, who hit Davis with everything but the kitchen sink as he gamely tried to cover up on the ropes. After the beating continued on for what appeared to be an extended period of time seeming like minutes, Fields finally connected with a sledgehammer left uppercut that dropped Davis to the canvas face first. Read more

By Erik Schmidt: Cruiserweight contender Marco Huck (19-1, 14 KOs), fresh off a 12th round TKO loss to IBF cruiserweight champion Steve Cunningham on December 29th, will make his first appearance since that time when he hopes for a change in luck against Leon Nzama (2-6) on Saturday night at the Jahnsportforum, Neubrandenburg, in Brandenburg, Germany. If there was ever a fighter that Huck could have chosen to ensure that he comes out the winner this Saturday, it’s Nzama, who has lost his last five fights coming into this Saturday’s bout with Huck.

Based on the relative inexperience, and the poor record of Nazama, one could safely conclude that Huck’s management team doesn’t have a lot of confidence in him that he’ll be able to overcome adversity if matched any tougher than this. However, I don’t blame them one bit for putting Huck in with a fighter with a record as dreadful as this, for Huck has looked no better than an amateur in his last two fights, beating Vadim Tokarev by a gift majority decision in May 2007, and then getting stopped in the 12th round by Cunningham in December. Read more

By Chet Mills: Undefeated bantamweight prospect Yan Barthelemy (5-0) will be going up against last minute replacement Jose Garcia Bernal (27-10-1, 18 KOs) on the undercard of the IBF light heavyweight championship showdown between champion Clinton Woods vs. Antonio Tarver, and WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson and former light heavyweight title holder Glen Johnson on Saturday night at the St. Peter Times Forum, in Tampa, Floriada. Barthelemy, 28, the 2004 Olympic Gold Medal winner for the Cuban National team in the light flyweight class, is making sixth appearance since turning professional in 2007. Read more

By Manuel Perez: Welterweight contender Jesus Soto-Karrass (19-3-3, 14 KOs) puts his lightly regarded WBC Continental Americas welterweight title on the line tonight against Chris Smith (21-4-1, 13 KOs) at the Tropicana Hotel & Casino, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Also, former light welterweight contender Ben Tackie (29-9-1, 17 KOs) goes up against former light welterweight contender Henry Bruseles (26-3-1, 15 KOs). Easily, the Tackie-Bruseles figures to be the more exciting bout, as each of them are better fighters as a whole than what I’ve seen of Smith and Soto-Karass, whom I see as more as low B-class fighters than top level talent. Read more

By Manuel Perez: In a showcase for three young unbeaten prospects, flyweight Ryonta Whitfield (21-0, 10 KOs), Fernando Guerrero (5-0, 5 KOs) and Michael Davis (6-0, 3 KOs) all emerged victories in their bouts on Wednesday night at the Bell Auditorium, in Augusta, Georgia. None of the prospects, aside from the 21 year-old Guerrero, looked very promising in terms of future championship caliber material, however. The fighter the closest to getting a shot at the title, #2 ranked WBO flyweight contender Ryonta Whitfield, 26, looked by far the worse of the bunch as he barely defeated Mexican Manuel Vargas 24-3, 10 KOs) by a majority decision scores of 117-111, 116-112 and 114-114. Read more

By Dan Ambrose: Former IBF light heavyweight champion Glen Johnson (47-11-2, 32 KOs) will be challenging undefeated WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson this Saturday on the undercard of the IBF light heavyweight bout between champion Clinton Woods and former champion Antonio Tarver at the St. Peter Times Forum, in Tampa, Florida. Johnson, now 39, is four years removed from winning the IBF light heayvweight title against Clinton Woods in February 2004, a title that Johnson subsequently turned around and lost a year later to Antonio Tarver in June 2005.

The high point of Johnson’s 15-year career arguably would have to be his 9th round KO of Roy Jones Jr., who Johnson knocked cold in September 2004 bout. Johnson, a heavy slugger with a relentless style of fighting, has shown himself to be vulnerable to fighters with superb boxing skills, such as Tarver, Woods and Julio Cesar Gonzalez, all of whom beat Johnson by unanimous decisions. Johnson rebounded from his 12-round split decision loss to Woods in September 2006, and has since won three consecuitive fights, most notably his 11th round TKO of Montell Griffin in the IBF title eliminator bout in May 2007. Read more

By Eric Thomas: In a move that comes to no surprise to me, the IBF has decided to give IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (50-3, 44 KOs) an exception to bypass his IBF mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin (15-0, 11 KOs), in which case Klitschko will now be able to go ahead with his plans to defend his WBO title against the number # 1 mandatory challenger, Tony Thompson (31-1, 19 KOs), about which will likely take place in July.

Wladimir Klitschko, 32, is reportedly ecstatic with the news of the decision, though it’s unclear why it would make much difference to him since he’ll have to defend against Povetkin sooner or later, and gives the appearance that Wladimir is for some reason avoiding having to fight him until he absolutely has to. According to Wladimir, he wants to fight Thompson first because he’s been waiting longer than Povetkin. Thompson, just to be clear, has been waiting for his title shot for a year, while Povetkin has only been waiting since January 26th, since defeating Eddie Chambers to win the IBF tournament to decide on who Klitschko’s mandatory challenger would be. Read more

By Aaron Klein: IBF light heavyweight champion Clinton Woods (41-3-1, 24 KOs) will be putting his title on the line this Saturday night against former light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver (26-4, 19 KOs) at the St. Pete Times Forum, in Tampa, Florida. The fight, which has so far failed the building much excitement aside from a few loyal British fans of Woods, is an especially important bout for Woods for if he can beat the 39 year-old Tarver, there’s a strong chance that Woods may be the next opponent for super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe. Read more

By Nate Anderson: This Saturday, unbeaten WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (31-0, 25 KOs), will defend his title against former star from The Contender reality television show Alfonso Gomez (18-3-2, 8 KOs) at the Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey. On the other card, IBF welterweight champion Kermit Cintron (29-1, 27 KOs), will be defending his title against his former conqueror Antonio Margarito (35-5, 25 KOs), who stopped him in a 5th round TKO in April 2005.

Most fans are eager to see both fights, in particular the Cotto-Gomez fight, although that fight figures to be more of a one-sided fight given the talent gulf separating the undefeated Cotto and Gomez. However, anything is possible as Gomez, 27, is fighting at the best in his short career and is capable of pulling off an upset unless Cotto gives it his best effort on Saturday. Ranked #9 overall in the IBF, Gomez is coming off of wins over Ben Tackie and Arturo Gatti. The win over Gatti was particularly impressive in that he stopped him in the 7th in 2007, a fight that Gatti was never in regards to fighting competitively. Read more

By Dan Ambrose: IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (50-3, 44 Kos) is counting on the IBF giving him an exception so that he can bypass his IBF mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin, who recently defeated both Chris Byrd and Eddie Chambers in the IBF’s elimination tournament to come out as Klitschko’s mandatory challenger. However, instead of giving Povetkin a shot at his title, Wladimir has recently decided upon defending his WBO title against the #1 challenger Tony Thompson (31-1, 19 Kos), a tall 6’5” heavyweight known mostly for being an awkward volume puncher with little power.

Apparently, Thompson had been waiting for an extended period of time, with little luck, for the previous WBO heavyweight champion Sultan Ibragimov to give him a shot at the title. Ibragimov instead decided on taking on high profile bouts with Evander Holyfield and then a unification bout with Wladimir, a fight in which Ibragimov lost his WBO title. Read more

By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated IBF super bantamweight champion Steve Molitor (27-0, 10 KOs) had an easy time turning back Mexican challenger Fernando Beltran Jr. (30-3-1, 18 KOs), beating him by a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Casino Rama, Rama, in Ontario, Canada. Molitor, 28, was making his 4th title defense of his IBF super bantamweight belt which he won in November 2006 with a 5th round TKO of Michael Hunter. Beltran Jr., 26, did little better than Molitor’s previous three opponents, and found himself hopelessly outclassed early on as he wasn’t able to match the speed, punch variety or the slickness of Molitor.

The final judges’ scores – 120-107, 120-107 and 119-109 – showed how truly one-sided the fight was for Molitor. Unfortunately for Molitor, there are few other big-named fighters in the IBF other than the young Rey Baustista from the Philippines, meaning that if Molitor wants to get a big money fight he may have to fight a unification bout with one of the other super bantamweight champions such as Daniel Ponce De Leon or Israel Vazquez. Celestino Caballero, the WBA champion, wouldn’t be as interesting in that he’s not as well known as De Leon and Vazquez. Read more

By Nate Anderson: Canadian middleweight contender Sebastien Demers (24-1, 9 KOs) gave American Matt Vanda (37-6, 21 KOs) a boxing lesson in the process of beating him by 10-round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Montreal Casino, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Aside from Vanda rocking the weak-chinned Demers every so often in the fight, Demers had an easy time beating the shorter, more limited Vanda. Demers, though not a fighter with the best of chins, has quite excellent boxing skills. Before this fight, I’d only see him in against Arthur Abraham, who never gave him a chance by stopping him early in the 3rd round.

I figured Demers wasn’t that good based on that fight, but I got to take that back. He can actually fight very well compared to many of the middleweights in the division, many of whom don’t have nearly the same skill set as Demers. I’d heard a lot about Demers from Canadian fans before his bout with Abraham, who was saying that he was a potential future champion. Now that I’ve seen him fight for entire bout, I’m not sure if I can fully agree with them yet, due to his chin problem, but he looks very good. Only 28, Demers showed immediately that he was one of the best jabs in the division. Read more

By Erik Schmidt: WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm (29-2-1, 13 KOs) had a ridiculously easy time beating #12th ranked challenger Australian Jamie Pittman (16-1, 7 KOs) by a 7th round TKO on Saturday night at the Burg-Waecheter Castello, in Dusseldor, Nordrhein, Germany. Pittman, 26, was knocked down three times in the fight, the last time in the 7th at which time the referee Russell Mora put a stop the hopeless mismatch at 0:36 of the 7th round.

Pittman was perhaps the worst #12th ranked fighter I’ve ever laid eyes on, which was likely the reason he was chose in the first place by Sturm.

Pittman was clearly not as good as his ranking indicated, as he showed few skills in the bout and didn’t appear to even know how to punch properly. Sturm, 29, I suppose was in need of an easy win after having fought a life and death battle in his last fight against #1 challenger Randy Griffin who fought Sturm to a draw, although most people saw Griffin as having easily won the fight. Read more

By Erik Schmidt: Super middleweight contender Jurgen Brahmer (31-1, 25 KOs) stopped Karim Bennama (17-10-2, 4 KOs) in the 9th round of a scheduled 10-round bout on Saturday night at the Burg-Waecheter Castello, in Dusseldor, Nordrhein, Germany. Ranked # 3 in the IBF, Brahmer, 29, toyed with Bennama, hitting him essentially at will in one-sided contest on the same card as Felix Sturm vs. Jamie Pittman, which also ended up as a disappointing mismatch. Blame it on bad match making, or then again, maybe that was the original intent. Read more

By Tony Krebs: WBU welterweight champion Michael Jennings (33-1, 16 KOs) defeated Geoge Ungiadze (12-6, 4 KOs) by a 7th round TKO of a scheduled 8-round non-title bout on Saturday night at the Bolton Arena, Bolton, in Lancashire. The fight, never close to begin with, ended with a flurry of punches in the 7th round as Jennings drilled the defenseless Ungiadze with combinations leading to the referee Phil Edwards stepping in and halting the bout.

Jennings, 30, took the fight as a stay-busy fight, and it turned out to be a one-sided mismatch as the 24 year-old republic of Georgia native Ungiadze had no chance to begin with, having lost four out of his last five fights going into the bout. Jennings for all practical had the fight won going into the bout because Ungiadze was largely an unskilled fighter with almost zero power. Read more

By Tony Krebs: Undefeated lightweight contender Amir Khan (17-0, 13 KOs) sliced through Denmark’s Martin Kristjansen beating him by an effortless 7th round TKO on Saturday night in the WBO lightweight title eliminator at the Bolton Arena in Lancashire. For those who were under the mistaken impression that Kristjansen, 30 would present any kind of challenge to Khan, they were dead wrong in their beliefs for Khan made it look effortless in stopping the outmatched Kristjansen.

Before it was over, Khan had dominated every round of the fight while knocking Kristjansen down three times in the 7th round before the referee could call a stop to the bout. The win puts the 21 year-old Khan as the mandatory for the WBO title which is held by Joel Casamayor and Nate Campbell. Judging from the post fight comments, it looks as if Khan may be heading for a possible fight against Casamayor, although before that potential bout comes off Khan will likely fight once more before them. Read more

By Aaron Klein: In a rather shocking upset, previously unbeaten WBU Featherweight champion Derry Matthews (20-1, 11 KOs) was annihilated by his Mongolian challenger Choi Tseveeenpurev (27-4, 19 KOs) in a 5th round KO loss at the Bolton Arena, Bolton, in Lancashire on Friday night. Matthews, 24, was knocked down a grand total of five times by Tseveenpurev – three times in the third and twice in the fifth round – eventually leading to the referee Dave Parris calling a halt to the bout after the fifth knock down of the fight at 3:00 of the 5th round.

Tseveenpurev, 36, hadn’t been expected to put up such a strong fight, as he’d previously been beaten by a number of fighters, including Willie Limond. However, a fighter with power and fighting style very similar to Kostya Tszyu, was noted for his incredible strength in the ring, in particular with sparring with the top British fighters. He showed dramatic improvement since his last loss four years ago to Limond, focusing on fighting much more aggressively from the outset and making it a point to try and rough up Matthews. Read more

By Chet Mills: Undefeated cruiserweight prospect Aaron Williams (17-0-1, 12 KOs) recorded another sensational stoppage on Friday night as he TKO’d former heavyweight knockout artist Andre Purlette (40-3, 35 KOs) in the second round at the Twin River Event Center, in Lincoln, Rhode Island. Williams, 21, was under heavy fire from the hard-punching Purlette in the second round, when he suddenly erupted with three powerful short right hand shots that first hurt and then dropped Purlette to the canvas.

Purlette made it up off the canvas, and the fight resumed with Williams tearing into an almost defenseless Purlette with a flurry of shots. Finally, after missing several of them, Williams finished off Purlette with a perfect left hook to the head, staggering him badly and prompting for referee Dick Flaherty to step in and stop the fight at 2:50 of the 2nd round. Read more

Light heavyweight Joe Spina (22-1-1, 15 KOs) won an exciting six-round split decision over Canadian David Whittom (10-6-1, 6 KOs) on Friday night at the Twin River Event Center, in Lincoln, Rhode Island on Friday night. The final judges’ scores were 58-56, 57-56 for Spina and 56-57 for Whittom. From appearances, the fight appeared to be a draw as neither fighter did enough to distinguish themselves as the clear winner. Spina, 30, was the favored fighter going into the bout as Whittom has lost five of his last nine fights leading up to the fight. Moreover, Whittom has also quickly taken off 20 lbs after competing against heavyweight Darrell Flint in March. Read more