Los Angeles, CA (August 20, 2008) — 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist and top-10 world rated Andre S.O.G. Ward has just released a statement today that on Friday, August 8 at around 6 AM (PST) he underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. Dr. Warren King, who has operated on many top athletes, and is also affiliated with the Oakland Raiders, San Jose Sharks and the San Francisco Giants, performed the surgery at Fremont Medical Center.
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Shannon Briggs: “I’ll Be Heavyweight Champion Again” – Wants Fight With Klitschko
By Jim Dower: Former WBO heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs (48-5-1, 42 KOs) made the shocking revelation on FNF that he’ll “Be a heavyweight champion again,” and also said that he wants to fight Klitschko. However, at 36, having lost his last fight 14 months ago against Sultan Ibragimov, it seems more and more remote the possibility of Briggs carrying out his promise. Indeed, he currently has no fight scheduled, which seems to make his statement appear to be little more than a pipe dream on his part rather than a real promise that he can carry out.
At one time, Briggs was one of the hardest punchers in the heavyweight division, and with his huge 6’4″ 240 lb frame, long 80″ reach and big right hand, he was capable of ending a fight in the first couple of rounds. He previously defeated George Foreman – albeit the version, not the young one – by a 12-round majority decision in November 1997. However, Briggs would later get knocked down three times by Lennox Lewis, and eventually getting taken out in the 5th round in March 1998. More uneven performances would follow, a 10-round draw with Francois Both in 1999, an eight-round majority decision loss to journeyman Sedreck Fields in 2000, and finally a 10-round lopsided unanimous decision loss to 6’6″ Jameel McCline in April 2002.
Tyrone Brunson – Antonio Soriano Fight To a Draw, Brunson Looks Poor
By Scott Gilfoid: In what may be a case of a hyped fighter being exposed, undefeated light middleweight knockout artist
Tyrone Brunson (19-0-1, 19 KOs) struggled with Antonio Soriano (12-9-2, 9 KOs), with the fight ending up a six-round majority draw on Friday night at the Venue at River Cree, Enoch, in Alberta, Canada. The final judges’ scores were 56-56, 56-56 and 58-56, for Brunson.
However, Brunson, 23, should consider himself very lucky to have been given a draw because it appeared from my perspective that Soriano, 31, won the fight four rounds to two. What makes it really bad, however, is that Soriano had lost five of his last six fights coming into the bout, and based on this, he shouldn’t have been able to compete with a fighter as hyped as Brunson has. However, not only did Soriano appear to most of the rounds, he looked like the much better overall fighter, showing better boxing skills, more aggression, higher work rate and better defense than Brunson.
Afolabi Defeats Tinsley
By Jim Dower: Fighting only hard in short spurts, the power-punching Ola Afolabi (13-1-3, 5 KOs) defeated DeLeon Tinsley (9-4-1, 5 KOs) by a lopsided eight-round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Ibiza Nightclub, in Washington, District of Columbia. The final judges’ scores were 79-73, 78-74 and 77-74. Afolabi, 28, perhaps the hardest puncher in the cruiserweight division, used his power shots to occasionally stun Tinsley and keep him well in control during the fight. However, Tinsley, 37, never stopped coming forward and throwing punches despite getting hit with some monstrous shots from the 6’3″ Afolabi during the bout. The problem for Tinsley, however, was that he didn’t have nearly enough power to give the strong-chinned Afolabi any real problems. Hence, Tinsley was shooting with blanks and couldn’t compete with the huge howitzer shots that Afolabi would unleash every once in awhile.
Afolabi was coming off a huge upset with over American Eric Fields in his last fight, stopping the highly touted Fields in the 10th round of the bout. However, after seeing the power in Afolabi’s shots early in the first round against Tinsley, I’m not in the least surprised that Afolabi was able to take Fields out. In fact, I’m frankly astonished that Fields was able to take Afolabi’s power for nine of the ten rounds without folding earlier in the fight.
Arvin Defeats Thompson
By Eric Thomas: Making his first appearance in 14 months, Anthony Thompson (23-3, 17 KOs) was defeated by Ishmail Arvin (15-1-4, 7 KOs) in a six-round TKO when referee Malik Waleed stopped the fight following the end of the 6th round due to a large cut over the left eye of Thompson. Waleed, however, failed to notice that the cut had occurred in the 3rd round from a clash of heads, and instead of ruling it as such, which would have meant that the fight would have been stopped and gone to the cards, (resulting in Thompson being rewarded the decision because he was ahead in the fight at the time of the stoppage) instead Arvin was given the TKO victory because Thompson couldn’t continue.
The referee was later shown video by the ESPN camera crew of when the cut occurred, showing that it had in fact resulted from a head butt in the 3rd round. Waleed then took that information to the ringside boxing commission. However, because the referee didn’t see the head butt occur on his own, the outcome stayed as it was, with Arvin winning by a six-round TKO. Instant replay or video shown after a fight, can’t be used to change the outcome of the fight because this isn’t used in boxing at this stage, so it comes down on what the referee sees – or fails to see, in this case – with his own two eyes. As such, Thompson, who clearly should have won the fight based on the fact that he won every round of the bout, hurting Arvin on a number of times in the fight and knocking him down twice in the 3rd round.
Castro Stops Cuello
By Manuel Perez: Light welterweight prospect Javier Castro (17-1, 15 KOs) stopped Harrison Cuello (15-8-2, 11 KOs) in the 3rd round of a scheduled 8-round bout on Friday night at the Aragon Ballroom, in Chicago, Illinois. Castro, an excellent light welterweight prospect with only one loss on his record from a 1st round disqualification to Jorge Reyna in December 2005, dropped Cuello with a short left hook in the third round. At the time, Castro was having all kinds of problems with the heavy pressure that Cuello was putting on him. However, when Cuello got up and the action resumed, Castro unloaded on him with a flurry of shots while Cuello futilely attempted to cover up against the ropes. At that point, referee Genaro Rodriguez quickly moved in and halted the fight at 0:47 of the 3rd round.
Ceullo, 32, came out fast in the 1st round, rushing forward and hammering Castro with left hooks to the body. At point, Cuello landed four consecutive left hooks to the midsection of Castro, with each punch thrown rapidly one after another. Although it was clear that Castro was the better overall fighter by far, Cuello’s fast all out attack left Castro very little chance to get any punches in on his own in the opening round. Indeed, Cuello didn’t let up with his shots until near the end of the round when he relaxed enough for Castro to get in a few shots of his own.
Sky is the limit for Amir Khan
By Jonathan Watkins: The more than familiar sight of a victorious Amir Khan is unlikely to change anytime soon after he announced his next fight to be against Columbian fighter Breidis Prescott. But what has changed is where boxing fans will be able to watch the Bolton born fighter. Khan and promoter Frank Warren have ended their association with ITV by signing a multi-fight deal with Sky Sports.
The move away from ITV seems to be a positive one for Khan, indicating his ambitions to move up the ranks and aspire to participate in future title fights. However while Khans career looks to be ever promising, ITV seem to be losing their grip on the boxing entertainment industry. With Setanta and Sky battling it out to broadcast the big fights, ITV will be left to pick up the pieces of the fights that the other two aren’t interested in broadcasting. Watching a quality fight for free could now be a thing of the past for boxing fans.
Frank Warren – The best promoter in Britain
By Abbas Dadhiwala: I think the notion that to succeed in boxing in this country … read more
Lopez Stops Andrade; De Jesus TKOs Navarrete
By Manuel Perez: Using a body attack which unfortunately consisted of a high number of punches that strayed below the belt, super flyweight Jose Lopez (37-7-2, 31 KOs) stopped Oscar Andrade (36-34-2, 18 KOs) in the 7th round of a scheduled 10-round bout at Coliseo Antonio R. Barcelo, in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. Lopez, 36, put Andrade down three times, once in the 6th and twice in the 7th, seemingly all with low blows. The referee, perhaps, was shielded from all of the blows, for he seemed to miss each one, and counted them as knockdowns.
Lopez also dropped Andrade, 33, with a nice low blow in the 5th round, although this time the referee got it right and scored it as a low blow. Lopez had been working the midsection of Andrade for most of the fight, but it wasn’t until the 5th round when he suddenly began straying low with great regularity and force. The second low blow in the 6th, from a big left hook, did a lot of damage to Andrade, who stayed down for a considerable amount of time trying to recover from the shot. In the 7th round, Lopez wasted no time and landed another combination both of which landed low, sending Andrade down again. At this point a point was deducted from Lopez.
Cloud Stops Gonzalez
By Tim Cavender: In an outcome that didn’t surprise me in the least, number#5 ranked IBF/WBO light heavyweight Tavoris Cloud (19-0, 18 KOs) took out former WBO light heavyweight champion Julio Gonzalez (41-6, 25 KOs) in the 10th round of a scheduled 12-round IBF title eliminator on Friday night at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois. Cloud, 26, who has up until this point in his career has faced nothing but the softest of opposition, allowing him to build up an impressive eighteen knockouts in his nineteen fights. Though ranked high in the light heavyweight division, he’d done nothing to earn his high ranking until tonight. After punishing the 32 year-old Gonzalez, who looked at least five years older than that, for nine mostly one-sided rounds, Cloud finally hurt Gonzalez with a big right hand in the 10th, causing him to backup to the ropes where Cloud teed-off on a badly hurt Gonzalez until the referee John O’Brien stepped in and halted the fight at 1:50 of the 10th round.
As much as I’d like to give praise to Cloud for his performance, I wasn’t all that impressed with him. He reminded me a lot of a bigger, slightly slower Jeff Lacy, who had an old opponent in front of him, just perfect for his big winging shots. His boxing skills were nowhere at all, and he was limited to these big wind up swings as he attempted to throw home run punches with every shots. It was lucky for Cloud that he was facing a fighter as old and apparently shot as Gonzalez, for I’d give him no chance of beating other top light heavyweights like Chad Dawson, Zsolt Erdei, Glen Johnson and Antonio Tarver.