Looking Forward to a New Year in Boxing

1-cotto-canelo (1)By Jonnyboy: The ever changing landscape of the boxing world has experienced serious movement in the last few months. Closing out the year, we witnessed the changing of the guard in multiple divisions with multiple champions with many new faces stepping into the limelight. With so many established names and newcomers in the mix, there’s an interesting slew of fights to look forward to in the coming year.

The question of whether or not all of these fights can be made remains unanswered, but the possibility still excites us. Here are five (possible) fights that we hope make the cut, but not the only ones that should be made:

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The True World Champions part 1

canelo5666By Markus McCourtus: Boxing as a sport is one of the hardest sports to compete in. The high level of fitness and skill required to compete at a decent level deserves respect, the mental conditioning required is also to be admired.

To prove yourself as a champion in such a sport is tough and requires elite skill and dedication, as to be champion you have to defeat the best (or at least one of the best) guy in the division. Or do you?

At the minute in the boxing world there are 17 weight classes, each weight class generally has 4 recognized world title holders, even more if you include the interim title holders and super and regular title holders, but to keep this simple let’s keep it to 4. So we generally have 68 world title holders.

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Breaking down ESPN’s P4P rankings

1-ROMAN GONZALEZ VS BRIAN VILORI (9)By James Le Blanc IV:

Roman Gonzalez – Truthfully Roman is only #1 because the voters know they can’t justify GGG at number 1 just yet. Roman has 10 more wins, more KO’s than Gennady Golovkin, an undefeated record but has faced little to unknown opposition. Even hardcore boxing fans don’t know who this guy is or have yet to see him fight. He is on my list but further down in rankings. Let’s see Roman headline a card once or twice and fight someone we are familiar with before we crown him the best in the world.

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Golovkin vs. Lemieux re-airs Saturday night on HBO @ 9:30PM ET

Boxing: Golovkin vs LemieuxBy Allan Fox: Tomorrow night, HBO will be televising the replay of the interesting if not exciting middleweight fight between WBA middleweight champ Gennady Golovkin and IBF champ David Lemieux, as well as the flyweight contest between WBC champion Roman Gonzalez and Brian Viloria.

The telecast starts @ 9:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. PT. The replay will come before the HBO Championship Boxing fight between WBO 140lb champion Terence Crawford and Dierry Jean from the Centurylink Arena in Omaha, Nebraska.

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Golovkin tops Roman Gonzalez in No.1 P4P poll

Boxing: Golovkin vs LemieuxBy Dan Ambrose: WBC flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez (44-0, 38 KOs) didn’t do a good enough job in beating #2 WBC challenger Brian Viloria (36-5, 22 KOs) last Saturday night for him to receive serious consideration as the No.1 pound-for-pound poll at Fight News.

The boxing fans have spoken and overwhelmingly IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) is seen as the No.1 fighter in boxing in the pound for pound list. The Fight News pound-for-pound poll has Golovkin on top 51% combated to Roman Gonzalez’s 28%.

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Purses: Golovkin $2M, Lemieux $1.5M, Gonzalez $250K, Viloria $100K

1-GolovkinLemieuxWeighIn_Hoganphotos5By Tim Fletcher: IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) will be getting the lion’s share of the money this Saturday night for his fight against IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs).

Golovkin’s purse for this Saturday will be a career high of $2 million. Lemieux, 26, isn’t that far behind in picking up $1.5 million. It’s unclear if the Canadian money he gets is included in his purse. If not, then Lemieux will likely wind up with more money than Golovkin for their fight on HBO pay-per-view at Madison Square Garden.

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Viloria: I’m ready to take Roman’s title

1-ROMAN GONZALEZ VS BRIAN VILORI (11)By Tim Fletcher: #2 WBC Brian Viloria (36-4, 22 KOs) is ready to face WBC flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez (43-0, 37 KOs) on Saturday night, and he feels confident that he’ll take his titles from him in their fight on HBO PPV from Madison Square Garden in New York.

Viloria, 34, is a considerable underdog in this fight, so he’s going to need to raise his game considerably for him to take Gonzalez’s titles from him. Viloria has a small 4-fight winning streak since his loss to Juan Francisco Estrada in 2013, but that probably won’t help him in this case because he’s way over his head. Viloria’s last four fights were against weak opposition, and that’s enabled him to keep winning.

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Roman Gonzalez vs. Brian Viloria: Will Chocolatito make us forget the shoulder roll?

1-ROMAN GONZALEZ VS BRIAN VILORI (8)By Gerardo Granados: It is possible that the reader hasn’t seen him fight yet, maybe some pay little interest to fighters who campaign below the welterweight division, perhaps the lower weight divisions aren’t in the spotlight as they should be and the CEO´s of the TV Networks know very little about what true fight fans like.

I think that we can agree that once you see how a talented boxer performs inside the ring you´ll know his real potential based on his boxing skills and not just on his magnetic personality; in Chocolatito´s case he is an intriguing character who at the same time will give blessing to the Lord God and also to his opponent but will not hesitate to destroy him.

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Roman Gonzalez – Brian Viloria start time, where to watch

Roman Gonzalez vs Brian ViloriaBy Dan Ambrose: Boxing fans can tune-in this Saturday night to watch WBC flyweight champion Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez (43-0, 37 KOs) defend his WBC 112lb title against #1 WBO, #2 WBC Brian “The Hawaiian Punch” Viloria (36-4, 22 KOs) on HBO pay-per-view in the co-feature bout on the Gennady “GGG” Golovkin vs. David Lemieux fight card at Madison Square Garden in New York.

What time does Gonzalez vs. Viloria start? This Saturday, on October 17th at 9:00 p.m. ET/ 6:00 p.m. PT.

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Rigondeaux about to be stripped of WBO of title

rigondeauxBy Dan Ambrose: WBA/WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (15-0, 10 KOs) is on the verge of being stripped of his WBO 122lb title by the World Boxing Organization for failing to defend his title in more than nine months since his last title defense against Japan’s Hisashi Amagasa on December 31st 2014.

Rigondeaux has 10 days to explain to the WBO why he hasn’t defended his title during the last nine months. Given the WBO’s past history in dealing with fighters that fail to defend their WBO titles in a timely fashion, Rigondeaux will likely be stripped of his title in the next 10 days unless he can come up with a really good explanation.

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