By Sean McDaniel: WBA featherweight champion Chris John (42-0-2, 22 KO’s) had to pull out of his June 27th rematch with Rocky Juarez due to an illness that John experienced while in training camp. Apparently, John, 29, collapsed while training for his bout with Juarez, which may be caused by a blood problem. John fought to a controversial 12 round draw with Juarez on February 28th in Houston, Texas, the home town of Juarez.

Most people who saw the fight felt that John won a landslide decision and should have been given the victory. Indeed, having seen the fight myself, I saw John winning the fight by 11 rounds to 1 for Juarez. With John out of the picture, a replacement was dug up for Juarez in the way of Puerto Rican Mario Santiago, a southpaw with excellent boxing skills and good power, but Juarez declined to fight him, so Juarez won’t be fighting this Saturday night.

It’s a good thing for Juarez, because Santiago is a tough fighter and came within an eyelash of beating Steven Luevano last year, having to settle for a draw. With little time to train for a southpaw with the kind of skills that Santiago has, Juarez would have been in a bad position had he taken the fight and perhaps would have been beaten. Juarez is smart enough to realize that he might be better off waiting for a fight with John rather than risking everything for an opponent without a title like Santiago.

Witter vs. Alexander on August 1st

World Boxing Council light welterweight title will be up for grabs on August 1st with Junior Witter and Devon Alexander going head to head in a 12 round bout for the vacant title at the Aqua Caliente Casino Resort and Spa in Rancho Mirage, California.

The title was freed up when former WBC champion Timothy Bradley vacated the title rather than defend it. Alexander (18-0, 11 KO’s) is still unproven despite his impressive won lost record, but many boxing fans are pleased with how he’s looked.

Alexander doesn’t have much in the way of power and like the Peterson brothers, Anthony and Lamont Peterson, Alexander has an annoying habit of grunting loudly every time he throws a punch whether landing or not.

The grunting is kind of off putting and make it hard to watch his fights, at least for me, because he doesn’t have much power and many of his fights go on for many rounds. Alexander is more of a boxer than a puncher, although he does have a good amount of knockout wins on his resume.

The large part of those have come at the expense of C-class opponents and not against the upper tier of boxers in the light welterweight division. Witter, 35, is trying to get his boxing career back on track after losing his WBO light welterweight crown last year in a 12 round split decision loss to Bradley in May 2008.

Witter was knocked down in the 6th round by a right hand from Bradley. Had that knockdown not occurred, Witter would have done enough to get a draw.