By Gentle Horizons: Eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao (Philippines) and current WBO Welterweight Title holder Jeff Horn (Australia) are set to iron out the details of their rematch which could happen in November or December 2017. As per CBSSports.com, veteran promoter Bob Arum has expressed that 38-year old Pacquiao is open to a rematch: “Manny doesn’t want to retire. He wants the rematch, so we are going to do the rematch.”
by Miguel Alejandro Lopez: Floyd Mayweather Jr., (45-0), is coming off two big wins in 2013 against Robert Guerrero and former undefeated champion Canelo Alvarez. Shortly after the Alvarez fight, rumors began to circulate that Money’s next opponent is the British boxing star, Amir Khan (28-3). Although nothing is settled at this point, there has been several indications that the two will mix it up soon in Cinco De Mayweather 2014.
When Floyd Jr. is about to fight someone, his father is usually the first to spill it out to the media as a sort of advanced promotion. Floyd Sr. said to the press: “If there’s one fighter whose a** I want Floyd to whip it’s Amir Khan – he’s no outstanding fighter and as long as he stays here he’ll keep getting his a** whipped.”
By Miguel Alejandro Lopez: From a boxing purist’s standpoint, Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0) simply outpointed Canelo Alvarez (42-1) in their fight last September 14, labelled as “The One”. From jabs to feints to lateral movements, Mayweather exhibited Olympic style boxing at its best. For the general mainstream viewers however, this tactical chess-match style of fighting can really be a challenge to the attention span, especially if one has to sit thru 12 rounds of monotonous activity in the boxing ring with no knockdowns and furious exchanges.
The unbeaten Mayweather explains why he wasn’t able to give the kind of fight excitement that the paying public is looking for:
By Miguel Alejandro Lopez: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0), currently considered as boxing’s pound for pound best in the world, has changed his mind (yet again) regarding a possible clash with Filipino boxing star Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2). It will be remembered that not too long ago, Mayweather gave Pacquiao a condition for the fight to happen — the Filipino should leave Top Rank Promotions and join Mayweather’s promotional outfit.
In a recent interview with Mlive.com, however, Mayweather took back his words and said “He’s [Pacquiao] not going to get a chance to fight me. I was feeling that way weeks ago. Now, I’m feeling like I wouldn’t even give him a chance. He had a chance, he blew it, so that’s what it is.”
By Miguel Alejandro Lopez: No matter how Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao try to get out of each other’s shadow, they will always find a way to throw flak on each other’s direction. Though these two are not fighting anytime soon, the boxing world has been set ablaze recently by a heated exchange of verbal jabs from the two rival camps.
During Mayweather’s press tour for the Canelo Alvarez clash, he described Pacquiao as a “has-been” whose career is over. Few days later the 8-division Filipino champ replied in a Filipino channel that he is not a has been and that Mayweather is all talk, no action. But what’s more surprising to some fans of the sport is how Mayweather responded to the Filipino challenge. The undefeated Floyd told Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports that he will fight Manny if he (Pacquiao) would be willing to leave Top Rank and join Mayweather Promotions.
By Miguel Alejandro Lopez: Juan Manuel Marquez (55-6-1, 40 KO’s), an extremely talented athlete from Mexico, is set to face American WBO welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (30-0, 12 KO’s) on October 12th at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. For boxing purists, the fight is expected to be an interesting one.
For the casual boxing fan, however, the fight is a potential dud. Marquez does not have a very strong global following, and Bradley is coming off two controversial wins. Their styles are somewhat technical, similar to chess match, and there is a feeling that there will be little action during this fight.
(Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime) By Miguel Alejandro Lopez: Coming off a boring but efficient performance against Robert Guerrero a few months ago, Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) is set to face another undefeated challenger, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) on September 14th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The fight is expected to be action packed, at least on Canelo’s end, because people are excited to see if the 152 lb. catch-weight will help Mayweather win the fight convincingly, or will it make very little difference.
Mayweather knows that the fight with Guerrero really underperformed in terms of PPV sales. For the first time in many years, Mayweather failed to make 1 million PPV buys. That’s really low because Adrien Broner and Paulie Malignaggi actually got 1.3 million views, why can’t Floyd make more with the Guerrero fight? Well it looks that people are tired of seeing Mayweather antics. When he did that trash talking with Guerrero on cam, people knew that it’s just a hype job. He did the same thing with Mosley, Dela Hoya, and every one he has ever faced. it’s all the same.
by Miguel Alejandro Lopez: Weeks after his decisive win over Manny Pacquiao, Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez reiterated his firm stance that he will never fight his Filipino rival ever again — no matter how much money is offered or regardless of what any promoter would say. With that solid statement, Team Pacquiao decided to move on from the Marquez saga as well.
However in a recent interview with LA Times Report, Marquez contradicted his previous position on the issue, and actually said he is now willing to fight Pacquiao again for a fifth time. The only condition is that the fight should take place in his native country of Mexico.
There is a very compelling reason why Marquez suddenly softened up on his stance on not fighting Pacquiao ever again. He realized (possibly too late) that in an effort to bargain for more purse money in the fifth Pacman fight, he lost all of his bargaining power because Pacquiao decided not to chase him.
By Miguel Alejandro Lopez: Floyd Mayweather is the pay-per-view king of boxing. Recently he signed up a deal with Showtime to fight six more times for a period of 30 months. Each fight is expected to stack each other in terms of revenue, causing a snowballing of income for the undefeated Mayweather. It seems as though the great Floyd Mayweather (who has won five titles in different weight classes) has no rival out there when it comes to cashing out the big bucks.
Not quite.
The recently fallen hero, Manny Pacquiao (who has won 11 titles in 8 divisions), is currently spending a long layoff from boxing after being embarrassed by a 40 year old muscular, athletic, powerful welterweight puncher from Mexico (who has a walking body weight of a lightweight). Anyway, even though Pacquiao is nowhere to be found in the boxing scene during the past six months, his name still apparently draws a lot of boxing fans to the sport.
By Miguel Alejandro Lopez: Many boxing experts predict that the upcoming fight between Juan Manuel Marquez and Timothy Bradley will be a running festival, a 20k marathon, a track and field. It’s because both fighters will simply run and circle the ring due to their styles.
Marquez has a backpedaling, counter-punching style which makes him prone to crowd boredom and lack of favor from the judges. He rarely initiates his own attack, and also treats the sport as a science — much like a chemistry or mathematics class. In fact, his trainer went on record to say that “Juan will never fight toe to toe”.
Bradley, meanwhile, has tried to be just a little bit more entertaining when he fought Provodnikov, but because of the beating he took from that fight, Bradley’s team announced that they will fight “smarter” next time. What does that mean? It simply means Bradley will revert to his old style of pit-pat boxing with no real power and action.