By Chet Mills: Once beaten heavyweight prospect Jason Estrada (12-1, 2 KOs) earned a dull 10-round unanimous decision over journeyman fighter Lance Whitaker (32-5-1, 27 KOs) on Friday night at the Twin River Event Center, in Lincoln, Rhode Island. Estrada, 27, a former thee-time U.S. amateur super heavyweight champion from 2001-2004, as well as a super heavyweight for U.S. in the 2004 Olympic games in Athens, outclassed a badly weight-drained Whitaker, 35, who came into the fight at 239 lbs, a total of around 40-45 lbs away from his optimal weight of the mid 270s.

It’s unclear why Whitaker, an excellent puncher at 270, would suddenly decide he needed to take off a great deal of weight in order to compete against the younger heavyweights. Certainly, he hasn’t been doing well in recent years, but that has seemed more due to his limited boxing skills than because of his tremendous size. What his reasons, his drastic weight loss accomplished nothing for him other than making him weaker against the high volume puncher Estrada. Read more

You are invited to an exclusive evening viewing of Muhammad Ali: The Photographs of Sonia Katchian at the Proud Gallery on Thursday 17th April from 7pm till 9pm. The only collection of its kind, this exhibition is the most intimate photographic portrait of Ali ever seen, shot all over the world alongside his family and friends. Previously unseen and unpublished in the UK, this is the chance of a lifetime for any sports fan to see the real story of this iconic sportsman. Bring a friend, have a drink, and come and see the man they called ‘The Greatest’ - Please RSVP to kate@proudgalleries.co.uk

By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated super featherweight prospect Argenis Mendez (11-0, 8 KOs) had a much tougher than expected time in the process of defeating the tough Mexican Oscar De La Cruz (5-5, 2 KOs) by fifth round TKO on Friday night at the Aviator Sports Arena, in Brooklyn, New York.

Mendez, a former 2004 Olympian for the Dominican Republic Olympic team, had to overcome fierce resistance from Cruz, 31, taking a lot of punishment from before stopping him with a flurry of punches in the 5th round. Mendez, who had a an impressive amateur record of 238-12, was fought almost to a standstill by the game Cruz, who kept coming forward all fight long, pressuring the tall 5’10” Mendez, and forcing him to trade on the inside where he was less adept than Cruz. Read more

By Nate Anderson: EBU (European) lightweight champion Yuri Romanov (21-2, 14 KOs) sliced up a game but limited Jon Thaxton (33-8, 18 KOs), defeating him by a 6th round TKO when Thaxton’s corner stopped the fight due to a severe cut over his right eye on Friday night at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, in London. Thaxton, 33, didn’t have his BBCofC British lightweight title on the line, and it lucky for him, because he was never in this fight. Thaxton made it mildly interesting in the first three rounds of the fight, exchanging fiercely with Romanov. However, Thaxton suffered a bad cut over his right eye, a result of a hard right hand from Romanov, and from then on it was only a matter of time before the referee stopped the fight.

Finally, at the end of the 5th round, with Thaxton bleeding all over the place from his deep cut, his corner stepped in and asked that the fight be stopped. Referee Massimo Barrovecchio then waited until Thaxton came out for the sixth round, before officially stopping the one-sided bout. Read more

By Aaron Klein: Undefeated light welterweight prospect Lee Purdy (7-0, 3 KOs) made short work of Jamie Spence (4-2, 2 KOs), on Friday night, winning by a 1st round TKO of a six round scheduled bout at the York Hall, in Bethnal Green, London. Purdy, a fighter with very heavy hands, was coming into this fight having knocked out his last opponent Craig Dyer in 107 seconds of the 1st round, showing Purdy’s enormous power. Spence, unfortunately for him, didn’t last much longer as Purdy immediately tore into him as soon as the fight started.

With both fighters trading tremendous shots, Purdy suddenly landed a big right hand that dropped Spence who fell awkwardly face first on the canvas. He got up and received a standing eight count but it seemed almost certain that he wouldn’t be able to make it out of the round in one piece. As soon as the fight resumed, Purdy was all over Spence, landing an unanswered storm of punches ending with a big right hand that staggered Spence causing the referee Marcus McDonnell to step in and halt the fight with Spence still on his feet, looking badly hurt and unable to walk without staggering. Read more

Former WBO bantamweight champion Jhonny Gonzalez (37-6, 31 KOs) had an easy time with his overmatched opponent Edel Ruiz (29-20-4, 20 KOs), knocking him out in the third round of a scheduled 10-round bout at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in Cabazon, California on Friday night. Gonzalez, who was making only his third fight since losing his WBO bantamweight title in a 7th round TKO to Gerry Penalosa on August 11th, 2007, dropped Ruiz three times in the third round before the fight was stopped by referee Jose Cobian seconds after the third knockdown in the round. Gonzalez, 27, fought mostly in an unusually reserved style in the first round, throwing very few punches and looking as if he wanted to carry his opponent for a few rounds. In fact, Gonzalez threw next to nothing in the first round landing only a handful of punches.

It was Ruiz, 30, who landed many more shots in the round. Ruiz had lost five of six fights going into last nights’ fight, any many more than that if you were inclined to dig deeper in his career record. In the second round, Ruiz continued to land well with left hands to the head of Gonzalez, while also showing some nifty foot movement. Read more

By Manuel Perez: In perhaps the most exciting fight of the night, lightweight prospect David Rodela (9-1-2, 5 KOs) stopped previously unbeaten prospect Ramon Ayala (8-1, 3 KOs) in the 4th round of a scheduled 6-round bout at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in Cabazon, California on Friday night. In the 4th round, Ayala, 19, had just landed a flurry of uppercuts to the head of Rodela, and appeared to be in control of the round, when Rodela suddenly fired a back a a three-punch combination ending with a powerful right hand that dropped Ayala to the canvas, flat on his back. Read more

By Manuel Perez: Former lightweight/super featherweight champion Jesus Chavez (43-4, 29 KOs) struggled in beating Puerto Rican Daniel Jimenez (17-3, 10 Kos) by a hard fought 10-round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in Cabazon, California. Chavez, now 35, was making his first appearance in 13 months and only his third fight in almost three years. Chavez, wearing a knee brace on his badly damaged right knee, looked old and slow for most of the fight, missing punches and getting outworked by the younger 27 year-old Jimenez.

Though the final judges’ scores scored the fight in Chavez’s favor by a 97-93, 96-94 and 96-94, it was more of an even fight. I had it scored a draw and if anything, Jimenez appeared to be the better overall fighter. It wasn’t a good sign for Chavez, who if he still hopes to challenge for a title in the future, he’s going to need to improve a lot more over this performance. Jimenez, though a good fighter, isn’t a even a ranked contender, yet he looked like a champion next to Chavez, and easily made him look old and ragged in contrast. Read more

By Erik Schmidt: Unbeaten NABF light middleweight champion Yuri Foreman (25-0, 8 KOs) successfully defended his title on Thursday night with a lopsided 10-round unanimous decision over contender Saul Roman at the Aviator Sports Arena , in Brooklyn, New York. The fight was never remotely close as Foreman easily was in control over every round of the fight. The final judges’ scores were 97-93, 98-92, and 98-92. The only round I could possibly see giving to Roman, 27, was the 7th in which he matched Foreman for punches landed. However, Roman’s shots were considerably weaker and he was outfoxed in the round, hence I couldn’t even give him that round.

Foreman dominated the first and second rounds, using his lateral movement, fast hands and superior boxing skills to confuse the much slower Roman. Foreman could do pretty much whatever he wanted to do without worry of being hit in return by Roman, who was always a step slow in his attempts to land. In the 2nd and third rounds, Roman was cut over both his left and right eyes, the left one being a particularly nasty cut that would give him problems for the remainder of the bout. Read more

By Erik Schmidt: In what turned out to be a disappoint premature stoppage by referee Ricky Gonzalez, # 1 ranked IBF welterweight champion Joshua Clottey (34-2, 20 KOs) stopped an overmatched Jose Luis Cruz (34-4-2, 27 KOs) in the 5th round last night at the Aviator Sports Arena, in Brooklyn, New York. Shortly after Clottey landed a series of punishing shots, ending with two consecutive left hands to the head of Cruz in the 5th, the referee jumped in and stopped the bout at 2:48 of the round. However, before Cruz looked perfectly okay and had been fighting back well the entire round up until the quick stopped. The referee said later that Cruz was wincing after every shot from Clottey, which was his reasoning for stopping the fight with Cruz still on his feet.

Clottey, 31, looked far from his best in the fight as he very economical with his punches and mostly fighting hard for the last 30 seconds of each round. He’s had a history of fading in the 2nd half of his bouts dating back to his 12th round unanimous decision loss to Antonio Margarito in a title shot for his WBO welterweight crown in December 2006. Read more

By Eric Thomas: Last week, Pound for Pound boxing great Floyd Mayweather Jr. took part in a Wrestlemania match, walkng away with a cool twenty million dollars for little more than 10 minutes of work in a staged match. Mayweather, 30, has seemingly stepped away from boxing as far as taking on the elite in the division. That is, unless you consider the 35 year-old Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton as the elite in the welterweight divison. I know for some fans, they certainly don’t and would be hard pressed to find few others, outside of one of Hatton’s British fans or one of De La Hoya’ fans. These comments are generally given by most fans about Mayweather’s choice of opponents in the past year. Read more

By Nate Anderson: In the latest war of words, former middleweight and light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (48-4-1, 32 KOs) is cutting though the pleasantries by calling undefeated super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (44-0, 32 KOs) “amateurish” and promising punishment along the way. If one weren’t alaready aware of Hopkin’s history, they’d incorrectly assume that Hopkins was just making hyperbolic statements in order to sell a few more tickets to the boxing public. Read more

By Scott Gilfoid: Former welterweight champions Shane Mosley (44-5, 37 KOs) and Zab Judah (36-5, 25 KOs) go at it on May 31st at the Mandalay Bay Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Both fighters have suffered losses to Miguel Cotto in the past year, and have found themselves in a position where they are each becoming irrelevant tin the welterweight division, especially Judah who has lost three out of his last six bouts. Cotto, 36, still appears to have a little left and could possibly give one of the welterweight champions some problems if he were to get a shot one of the titles. Read more

By Aaron Klein: Undefeated WBO/WBC middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (33-0, 29 KOs) will be making his first title defense on June 7th against once-beaten knockout artist Gary Lockett (30-1, 21 KOs) at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Pavlik, 25, has been building Lockett up, saying that he’s got power and is capable of winning the fight. Indeed, I’m in full agreement with Pavlik in that after having seen several of Lockett’s fights recently. Read more

By Erik Schmidt: WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm (28-2-1, 12 KOs) will put his title on the line against #12 ranked challenger Jamie Pittman (16-0, 7 KOs) this Saturday at the Burg-Waechter Castello, in Dusseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. Sturm, 29, is coming off a controversial draw in his last fight against his mandatory challenger Randy Griffin in October 2007. Instead of giving Griffin a much-needed rematch, the German-based Sturm has opted to take on the 26 year-old undefeated Australian Pittman, who is largely unproven having fought mostly lower level fighters in Australia.

While there’s some that are saying (mostly Australian fans) that Pittman has a good chance at beating Sturm, that seems nothing more than a pipe dream because Sturm is clearly the favorite against the untested Pittman. In fact, I see this fight as more of another one of Sturm’s easy title defenses against unknown fighters. Sturm has been disappointing champion since winning his WBA middleweight title back in March 2006 with a win over Maselino Masoe. Read more

By Tony Krebs: According to the latest news, two-time WBA super middleweight champion Anthony Mundine’s (31-3, 23 KOs) next title defense against Australian Sam Soliman hasn’t been approved by the WBA. The bout, the third matchup between the two, is currently scheduled for May 28th. Recently, former WBA/WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler was announced as the #1 mandatory challenger for the WBA belt held by Mundine.

Kessler, 29, previously soundly defeated Mundine in 2005, beating him by a one-sided unanimous decision. Mundine, however, proved that he has nine lives as he regained his WBA title with a 9th round TKO of fellow Australian Sam Soliman in March 2007. Since that time, Mundine has defended his title three times, beating exclusively soft opponents – Pablo Daniel Zamora Nievas, Jose Alberto Clavero, and Nader Hamden – rather than the top dogs in the division. Read more

By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated WBA heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev (24-0, 17 KOs) will finally be giving a rematch to former champion Nikolay Valuev (48-1, 34 KOs), whom he beat by a majority decision on April 14th 2007. The rematch long awaited by Valuev, will be taking place on May 31st at the Arena Oberhausen, Oberhausen, in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. In their prior fight, Chagaev did little to distinguish himself as the victor in the fight as he defensively, mostly staying on the outside and when he would attempt to land punches, they would come up short and land on Valuev’s chest or gloves.

Only rarely did the short, 6’ foot Chagaev even reach Valuev’s head. Rather than give Valuev a much needed rematch so as to distinguish who the real better fighter is between them, Skelton cooled his heals doing little for nine months until finally defending his title against Max Skelton in January 2008. Chagaev fought poorly against Skelton, clinching often and looking slow and out of shape. The fight resembled more of a tough man contest than a professional title match. Read more

By Aaron Klein: It seems as if WBC Junior welterweight champion Junior Witter has been calling out Ricky Hatton, although nothing that Witter has said has increased his chances at landing a fight with him. Most recently, Hatton has reportedly said he’d been thinking of fighting Witter until he made a comment to him at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards in Birmingham, telling him “One day.” From that one comment, Hatton intimated that Witter had blown his chance at fighting him. Read more

By JB: Former Pound-for-Pound king, Roy Jones Jr. is on the cusp of rejuvenating his career after stringing together two wins over top-25 caliber opponents, and more importantly a win in January over fellow future hall of fame candidate Felix Trinidad. However, the question is how can he best capitalize on this late-career momentum he has garnered?

Currently Mr. Jones has two well-documented options, a bout in Germany versus former WBC 168 lbs. kingpin Markus Beyer, and what would amount to an exhibition bout against mixed martial artist and current UFC 185 lbs. champion Anderson Silva of Brazil. The benefits to Roy’s bank account, fame and legitimizing his resurgence as a contender in the sport of boxing vary depending on which course of action he chooses to take.

A match against 3-time WBC super middleweight champion Markus Beyer provides Jones with a credible, yet beatable opponent against the backdrop of what would be a huge sporting event in Germany. Beyer, a crafty southpaw boxer, carries very little in the way of punching power and is physically smaller than Jones, being 5′9 and having spent his entire career at 168 pounds. Read more

By Dan Ambrose: In the latest boxing news, IBF heavyweight champion Wladmir Klitschko (50-3, 44 KOs) has reportedly turned down an offer of five million Euro to fight his #1 challenger for his IBF title Alexander Povetkin, according to Bild Zeitung, a German paper. If the story is indeed true, then it means Wladimir has turned down $7 million in U.S dollars to face Povetkin. Klitschko instead is aiming at fighting American Tony Thompson (31-1, 19 KOs), Wladimir’s number #1 challenger for his newly won WBO heavyweight title. Thompson, 36, appears to be the easier option than having to face Povetkin, which perhaps is why Klitschko may be holding off on facing him for the time being.

Klitschko has no option in the future if he wants to continue to hold onto the IBF title due to Povetkin being the mandatory for the title. However, it looks as if Wladimir wants to knock out one more easy fight before having to face the prospects of fighting Povetkin, who would no doubt doubt be a very tough opponent for the 32 year-old Klitschko. It’s doubtful that Wladimir will get anything close to seven million for fighting Thompson, but then again he doesn’t present the same kind of danger that Povetkin does, meaning that Wladimir could get a decent payday against him before taking the Povetkin fight which will considerably more. Read more