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By Manuel Perez: If you were looking for an exciting action packed bout, then you needed to look no further than last night’s IBF featherweight showdown for the vacant IBF title between Cristobal Cruz (37-11-1, 23 KOs) and Orlando Salido (31-10-2, 20 KOs) at the Northern Quest Casino, in Airway Heights, Washington. Both fighters traded shots all night long with both of them eventually throwing more than 1000 punches a piece, though many of them missed badly.

Cruz, 31, ultimately won the exciting bout by a 12-round split decision, but I had him winning the vast majority of the rounds with his good work rate. The final judges’ scores were 116-112, 116-112 and 113-115. Neither fighter’s punches had much power to them, as they seemed to sacrifice power for a much higher work rate. Salido, normally a hard puncher, appeared to make the mistake of trying to match Cruz punch for punch, which led to Salido tiring badly in the last four rounds of the fight causing him to push his punches rather than throw them with any kind of authority. He probably should have focused more on blocking Cruz’s mostly wild and badly telegraphed punches instead, and looking for opportunities to counter him with power shots.

By Aaron Klein: Middleweight contender Marco Antonio Rubio (43-4-1, 37 KOs) hardly looked impressive on Saturday night, defeating Enrique Ornelas (28-5, 18 KOs) by a 12-round split decision in the WBC Middleweight Title Eliminator bout at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I had Ornelas, 28, winning the fight by seven rounds to five, out-punching Rubio in almost every round and landing by far the harder shots on the night. However, the final judges’ scores were 115-113, 113-115, and 116-112, giving Rubio the decision.

By Nate Anderson: Former BBBofC British and World Boxing Union lightweight champion Graham Earl (25-4, 12 KOs) was destroyed in the 1st round on Friday night against Henry Castle (19-4, 11 KOs) at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, in London. Earl, 30, never really stood a chance as he was blasted with hard combinations from Castle at the start of the bout, and seconds into the fight, Earl was put down with a perfect left-right combination to the head. Earl got up but took nonstop punishment until the referee Jeff Hinds stepped in and stopped the bout at 1:09 with Earl backed up against the ropes and being unloaded on by Castle. This was Earl’s second consecutive 1st round knockout and third loss in a row.

Earl did look right entering the ring, having the look of a deer frozen in the headlights of a large truck. For whatever reason, he seemed not to be into the fight and not mentally prepared to engage in battle with the hard punching Castle. Given his last loss, a first round TKO at the hands of Amir Khan, Earl appeared to be doing himself no favors by choosing the aggressive Castle as his first opponent after such a disappointing loss.

By Manuel Perez: Super bantamweight Jonathan Oquendo (15-2, 9 KOs) defeated Jose Angel Beranza (30-14-2, 25 KOs) by a 10-round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Coliseum Fransisco Deyda, in Hatillo, Puerto Rico. The final judges’ scores were 97-92, 97-92 and 97-92, all for Oquendo. Like the other fight on the card between Irving Garcia and Chris Smith, I thought the scores were way out of line with the actual fight that took place. I had the Beranza-Oquendo fight scored a draw, with Oquendo winning most of the earlier rounds, but then getting rocked by Beranza and losing the last five rounds.

Beranza, 32, from Mexico, looked incredibly good from the 6th round on, mounting a furious comeback powered by hard body shots and hooks to the head. Oquendo, only 25, looked uncomfortable with the body shots and seemed unable to fend off Beranza’s attacks with any kind of luck. Compared to the first five rounds, in which Oquendo dominated with his speed and heavy onslaught of punches, the fight looked like two completely different bouts. Beranza seemed over-matched in the early portion of the bout, as Oquendo went after him with both hands pounding him with heavy shots to the head, frequently driving Beranza to the ropes where he would cover up.

By Manuel Perez: Welterweight Irving Garcia (17-3-3, 8 KOs) finally won a fight after two prior technical decisions in 2008, earning a 10-round unanimous decision over Chris Smith (21-6-1, 13 KOs) on Friday night at the Coliseum Fransisco Deyda, in Hatillo, Puerto Rico. Garcia, 29, who came close to beating Yuriy Nuzhnenko in April before the fight was stopped in the 10th due to cuts that Nuzhnenko sustained, won all three judges’ scorecards 98-92, 97-93 and 97-93. However, I personally had Smith winning six rounds to four and didn’t see how the judges could have scored it for Garcia.

Smith fought well from rounds four through nine, pressuring Garcia hard, landing the much more telling blows and looking to easily win the rounds. Garcia fought well mainly in the first three rounds, in which he was able to land left hooks and right hands. After that, though, Smith came on and began to pressure Garcia nonstop, staying on top of him and forcing him to fight at close range where Garcia looked out of his element. The bout was fought in Puerto Rico, where Garcia currently lives. Like I said, I had Smith winning the fight easily, but if I wanted to be really kind to Garcia, I would call it a draw, but that would be stretching things quite a bit given his poor performance.

By Nate Anderson: BBBofC British bantamweight champion Ian Napa (18-6, 1 KOs) overcame a poor start of the bout on Friday night to come back and defeat EBU (European) bantamweight champion Carmelo Ballone (21-3-1, 10 KOs) by a 12-round majority decision at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, in London. Napa, 30, knocked a tired Ballone down with a right to the body in the 10th round, and won the final 12th round to get the decision. Napa performed poorly in the first six rounds of the fight, failing to let his hands to enough and getting hit a lot by the champion Ballone.

However, in the 7th round Ballone began to tire out, throwing much less punches and moving around more to try and stay away from the now busy Napa. In rounds eight through ten, Napa would control the fight with his constant pressure, good body shots and hard hooks to the head. Ballone was cut over his right eye by a clash of heads, and the cut seemed to bother him a great deal, as he showed concern for it by dabbing at it often. Despite Napa’s knockdown of Ballone in the 10th, the fight was still up for grabs in the final 12th round.

By Jim Dower: Tonight, Holly Holm (22-1-2, 6 KOs) will face Mary Jo Sanders (25-1, 8 KOs) in a long anticipated rematch for the vacant International Boxing Association Female light middleweight title at the The Palace, in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The two fighters fought four months ago in June, with Holm, 27, winning a controversial unanimous decision by the scores of 98-92, 98-92 and 97-93. At best, I gave Holm three of the 10 rounds and even that would be a stretch, because she looked terribly amateurish in comparison to the much more polished Sanders, missing often and throwing wild punches that hit nothing. In reality, I think Holm came close to winning only round, the sixth, but even in that round I think she lost it because Sanders landed the much cleaner shots.

Much of the time, Holm would lower her head and come charging forward while flailing both of her arms. As you would expect, she would rarely land anything in attacks like this. Instead, Sanders, 34, would calmly tag her with hard combinations to the head, picking off her wild charges with ease and great accuracy. However, Sanders was at somewhat of a disadvantage given the fact that the fight was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Holm’s home town. The crowd was a huge factor for Holm, screaming loudly every time she would come rushing in with her wild shots, giving the impression that she was landing punches despite the fact that I could rarely see any shots from her that landed.

By Erik Schmidt: Last Saturday night, German welterweight prospect Oliver Guettel (14-1, 8 KOs) defeated Felix Lora by a 4th round TKO to defend his WBC World Youth welterweight title at the Mittellandhalle, Barleben, in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. I’ve seen Guettel, 23, fight on several occasions and this was by far the best he’s looked in either of the three fights. Usually, Guettel has a nasty habit of charging forward with his head like a Billy Goat, ending up ramming his head to the chest or head of his opponents resulting in quite a few clash of heads.

This time, though, Guettel fought in a much more disciplined manner, keeping his distance, throwing jabs and refraining from his head-ramming of his opponent. His hand speed is nothing to get excited about, but his foot movement and jab are quite excellent. He reminds me a little of Sebastian Zbik and Felix Sturm, only without their good right hand power. However, at twenty-three, Guettel may improve with his right hand power in time and be even better fighters than either Sturm or Zbik.

By Adam Laiolo: Hype is cruel, no doubt about that. It can build you up, unjustified, to the point where your bark becomes worse than your bite. And the fall from grace seems a lot higher when you’ve been hyped up for so long. Some people deal with it, don’t let it affect them in anyway. Others either believe it, or crumble under it. Believing your own hype is a dangerous move, especially when you should be able to be honest with yourself first and foremost.

Kelly Pavlik is just this. I’m not going to rant and rave about how poor Pavlik is, that’s not right, I’ve just got a few things to point to our American friends over the pond who sometimes live in a mental state bordering on delusional. Just why Kelly Pavlik has gone from nobody to THE best in the world in no time at all is down to one thing, American hype. The sheer size of the media can out do any other country. Let’s look at the facts. Record: 34-0 (30 KO’s) is an outstanding record with no blemishes and a high knockout rate, not bettered by many at this time. A quick scan down Pavlik’s undefeated record shows only two fighters of any kind of class, Edison Miranda and Jermain Taylor.

By Eric Thomas: In the latest boxing news, promoter Don King is interested in bringing back former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis out of retirement to face new WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko. According to news sources, King is willing to pay €35million to get Lewis and Vitali back in the ring for a rematch of their June 21st, 2003 bout, in which Lewis stopped Vitali on cuts. It’s been five years since that date, and Lewis retired shortly after that bout and hasn’t stepped foot in a ring since that date.

Through the past few years, Lewis has shown little interest in returning to the ring. However, with Vitali making a comeback after four years and defeating Samuel Peter last Saturday in a 8th round stoppage, Lewis may have a change of mind. Vitali looked good in beating Peter, but he didn’t look unbeatable, especially when it would come to a fighter with as much skills as Lewis. In their prior fight, Vitali fought well for the first four rounds, using his jab and short right hands to score points. He didn’t load up on his shots and instead looked to just connect to the head of Lewis. However, in the 5th round, Lewis started taking control of the fight, hammering Vitali with uppercuts.