Mayweather vs. Marquez Rescheduled on September 19th; Dzinziruk-Williams in September? – News

By Boxing News - 06/26/2009 - Comments

By Dave Lahr: The mega bout between unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Juan Manuel Marquez has been rescheduled for September 19th after Mayweather, 32, injured his ribs in training and couldn’t make the orignal July 18th date of the fight. This is good news, however, because ticket sales for the July 18th bout were reportedly anemic with few tickets having been sold for the fight.

Mayweather hasn’t fought in two years since retiring from boxing following a 10th round stoppage of Ricky Hatton in December 2007. It’s unclear whether the added delay for the fight will help with ticket sales any, because it’s a fight that involves two counter punchers that are known for their defensive ability.

Before retiring in 2007, Mayweather had two huge mega fights with Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton. It’s hard to tell now what was the factor in the huge sales for those two fights – De La Hoya and Hatton driving the ticket sales or Mayweather.

Whatever the case, the Marquez bout will be a good test of Mayweather’s marketability or lack thereof. Mayweather certainly didn’t help his case by retiring in 2007 just at a time when he was becoming a popular fighter in the boxing world. Since he hung up the gloves, there have been a number of other big boxing stars that have moved in and taken Mayweather’s place as a big attraction one of them being Manny Pacquiao.

Mayweather has faced a little heat because of his selection of Marquez, a lightweight, as an opponent for his comeback rather than a welterweight which is the weight class that he’s been fighting in. From appearances, it seems as if Mayweather is looking for a smaller beatable fighter rather than having to fight a tough welterweight like Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley or Paul Williams. However, Mayweather has in mind a future bout against Pacquiao if Manny get by Cotto in November.

Dzinziruk vs. Williams

According to Fight News, World Boxing Organization light middleweight champion Sergiy Dzinziruk (36-0, 22 KO’s) could possibly be facing Paul Williams (37-1, 27 KO’s) in September. Williams, 27, WBO interim light middleweight champion, defeated Verno Phillips by an 8th round stoppage in November for the WBO title. Williams followed that bout up with an impressive 12 round lopsided decision over Winky Wright in April 2009.

Dzinziruk, 33, has held the WBO light middleweight title since 2005, and has defended it five times, albeit against fairly average competition. Most recently, Dzinziruk recorded arguably his best win of his career with a 12-round unanimous decision over slugger Joel Julio in November 2008.

Based on Germany, Dzinziruk is no longer interested in defending his title against the usual fodder in Germany, and is looking to travel to the United States to try and set up the biggest fights that he can find. Perhaps this is why Williams’ name has popped up. Before this, Dzinziruk was set to face knockout artist James Kirkland. However, that bout was taken off the table when Kirkland ran into legal problems and was unable to fight Dzinziruk.



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