For Immediate Release & Publish
REAL COMBAT MEDIA WEEKLY BOXING REPORT
By Jason Gonzalez,Real Combat Media Arizona Boxing Correspondent
Welcome back to another edition of the Real Combat Media Boxing Weekly Report “Boxing Blaze Edition” where we cover all the top news stories in boxing each week!
Monday (October 31, 2016)
Juan Manuel Lopez Suspended
Last week Juan Manuel Lopez beat Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. by knockout in the eleventh round. After the knockout, Lopez went to the Vazquez’s corner and started swinging at his trainer Albert Rivera. The two exchanged punches but no explanation has been given as to why this happened. Lopez and Rivera were suspended on Monday by the Boxing Commission of Puerto Rico. The two will be suspended until the Boxing Commission of Puerto Rico has reviews the case in depth.
Tuesday (November 1, 2016)
WBA Approves Klitschko vs Joshua
Early in October of 2016 a fight between Wladimir Klitschko and Anthony Joshua were in negotiations for December but the fight didn’t go through because one little problem. Klitschko wanted the WBA title but the WBA had not officially approved to sanction the fight between the two. The two held off making the fight official until the fight was sanction but it got to a point where the fight date was too close for proper training and promotion of the fight. Now the fight has been given the go ahead and will most likely take place in March or April of 2017. Who do you have your money on?
Wednesday (November 2, 2016)
Billy Joe Saunders is currently the WBO Middleweight Champion and according to the WBO president Francisco ‘Paco’ Valcarcel, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez can become his mandatory. Canelo became the WBO Junior Middleweight Champion in September after beating Liam Smith. Because he Canelo is the the WBO Junior Middleweight Champion he can move up in weight and ask the WBO to become the mandatory. “[Canelo] could be the mandatory challenger because of being the junior middleweight champion. He could say ‘make me the mandatory challenger at 160’ and we would consider that. If he wants to move up and fight as the mandatory, we would consider that. Why not?,” Valcarcel told BoxingScene.com.
It looks like this is becoming a reality because the WBO president said that the two teams have started negotiations. “They are negotiating. They started negotiations and they have continued negotiating,” Valcarcel said.
It looks like Canelo is trying to become the WBO Middleweight Champion and then potentially fight against Golovkin for all of the belts at Middleweight. What do you think about his move?
Olympic Champion Makes Pro Debut
Claressa Shields won a gold medal in the Olympics twice; She won a medal once in 2012 and again in 2016. She plans to make her pro debut on the undercard of Sergey Kovalev vs Andre Ward on Saturday November 19, 2016 at the T-mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Today Shields announced on her social media that she will be fight against Franchon Crews at middleweight. The fight will be four rounds and each round will last two minutes. Women’s boxing doesn’t get the attention or the coverage that men’s boxing gets. Can we possibly be seeing the savior to women’s boxing?
Thursday (November 3, 2016)
Sergey Kovalev and Andre Ward are set to face each other in the ring on November 19, 2016 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Even though they will not be having an HBO 24/7 on Kovalev vs Ward they will be having a Road to Kovalev vs Ward which is basically the same thing but usually shorter. The show will release on Saturday November 12, 2016 on HBO.
Antonio Margarito returned to thing this year after being retired for over four years. Since then he has fought and won twice. The first fight was against Jorge Paez Jr. and the second was against Ramon Álvarez (Canelo’s brother). Margarito was going to fight one more time this year but due to scheduling problems he had to move his fight date to 2017. Sergio Diaz, the co-manager of Margarito, tells BoxingScene.com – “We’re going to be discussing another date later this month. He wanted to fight in December but December the 3rd (Julio Cesar) Chavez Jr. was supposed to fight, ‘Triple G'( Gennady Golovkin) on the 10th and then the (Orlando)Salido fight on the 17th and by the time everything got moved around, Salido got hurt, Chavez Jr. moved to the 10th because Golovkin moved, it was already too late to put something together.”
Margarito is hoping to get a big fight but if the fight doesn’t happen then it looks like he will be retiring for good. “At this point of his career he’s not really going after anybody, yes, he’s mentioned some names and if it happens, it happens. But right now he’s fighting and really hoping to get a big fight. If not, he’s already mentioned to me,”Sergio, I’m not going to be fighting forever. If nothing happens I’m just going to hang up the gloves and retire”,” Diaz states.
Friday (November 4, 2016)
Today the tickets for Anthony Joshua vs Eric Molina went on sale today and they sold over 17,000 tickets. The two fighters are set to fight on December 10, 2016 at Manchester Arena which can seat 21,000 people. Selling a majority of the seat in one day shows that Joshua has major selling power over in the UK. If a fight against a relatively unknown fighter gets this much attention imagine what the sales would be like between Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko if the fight were to happen.
Saturday (November 5, 2016)
Manny Pacquiao vs Jessie Vargas
Today Manny Pacquiao returned to the ring against Jessie Vargas at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas Nevada. Pacquiao defeated Vargas by unanimous decision and became the WBO Welterweight Champion. Before this fight Pacquiao said that he had retired from the sport but his Promoter convinced him to step back into the ring against Vargas. Many fans wanted to know if Pacquiao still belongs in the ring or if it was time to call it quits. Taking into account that Vargas only won about three or four rounds and that Vargas was also knocked down in the 2nd, I think it’s safe to say Pacquiao still has a couple of fights left in him. There was times in the fight where you saw hints of a younger Pacquiao that was extremely aggressive and careless when attacking Vargas. There was also several times in the fight where Vargas would catch Pacquiao with a good clean right hand that would get you worried for a second or two hoping it wasn’t another Marquez incident.
Vargas got more than he bargained for when he undermined Pacquiao’s speed which was the ultimate factor in the fight; Vargas was too slow for Pacquiao. I thought Vargas was going to end up looking like Margarito but Vargas was able to use distance and timing to make the fight competitive. Many fans were expecting Vargas to get slaughtered, instead we saw him able to trade with Pacquiao and even make it hard for Pacquiao to enter at times. If you compare Pacquiao now to when he was 30-years-old it’s clear to tell he is slowing down but being able to clearly beat Vargas at 37-years-old gives Pacquiao a pass. It’s getting to the point in his career where you start to question if he can beat the elite fighters at 147 lbs. I’m interested to see a fight between Danny Garcia and Manny Pacquiao (if the politics allow it). Now is the perfect time Pacquiao is slowing down but he’s still a big threat and Garcia is in his prime. As of now Pacquiao isn’t looking for anyone in particular, he says he’s going to leave it to his promoter. Who do you think Pacquiao should fight next?
Pacquiao vs Vargas Undercard
The Co-main event on the undercard of Pacquiao vs Vargas was the WBO Feather Champion Oscar Valdez (21-0) vs Hiroshige Osawa (30 – 4 – 4). Even though Osawa is ranked number 1 after Valdez it was clear from round one that the fight was a miss match. From the first round Valdez was attacking aggressively and landing clean flush shots. At the end of the second round Valdez hurt Osawa but Valdez was unable to get him out even after landing several hard shots in a row with no response. In the fourth Osawa was knocked down but once again was able to survive the whole round even after taking several nasty shots. One thing is for sure, Osawa has a chin. Finally in the 7th round Valdez hurt Osawa and on the ropes. After several unresponded shots from Osawa the referee stopped the the fight and Valdez retained his WBO belt. Valdez is in a stacked division with fighters like Carl Frampton, Leo Santa Cruz, Gary Russell Jr, Abner Mares and Vasyl Lomachenko. There shouldn’t be a hard time look for a challenge in his weight class.
In the fight before Nonito Donaire fought against Jessie Magdaleno for the WBO Junior Featherweight title. This had to be the weirdest fight of the night. The two together had an awkward style and it took a long time to finally settle in. It looked liked for the longest time the two couldn’t find a define distance to fight at and it resulted in a lot of awkward missing. A lot of rounds in the first half could have gone either way but in the second half Magdaleno was consistently landing more which gave him the upper hand. Magdaleno won the fight by unanimous decision and is now the WBO Champion at Junior Featherweight. As of now it looks like Donaire’s career is coming to an end, should he retire or try one last time to prove himself elite amongst his weight class?
The first fight of the night was between Zou Shiming and Prasitsak Phaprom who is most known as Pacquiao’s twin. Shiming was the faster fighter of the two and the better technical fighter as well. Many times it looked like the fight was glorified sparring match. Shiming was having an easy time but in the later rounds it got more difficult when Phaprom started to throw hay makers.
A lot of them were missed but at that point it looked like a lucky punch was the only was he could pull off a win. Shiming won the fight by unanimous decision and became the WBO World Flyweight Champion.
Sunday (November 6, 2016)
Manny Pacquiao beat Jessie Vargas on Saturday night and took his WBO belt at 147 lbs. Not too long after the fight Kell Brook went on social media suggesting a unification match between the two fighters. Brook needs to slow down because before he even starts thinking about Pacquiao he needs to get his mandatory Errol Spence out of the way and that my friends is no easy task. Brooks last fight was against Gennady Golovkin at 160 lbs and now he’s not so sure if he’s going to go back down. “My weight has settled down so I could still make welterweight. I’ve got Spence on the horizon and there’s the likes of [WBC champion] Garcia and Amir Khan as well, but I don’t know yet,” Brook said. “I’m looking forward to getting back in the gym and seeing what direction I’m heading in next. I need to make sure my eye is 100 percent before I start doing that. I’m looking at getting back in spring next year.”
Please stay tuned every week for news and updates. If you have any questions that you want answered in the weekly report please email me at [email protected] or follow me on Twitter @boxingblaze or on Facebook at Jason Gonzalez.
ABOUT REAL COMBAT MEDIA: Real Combat Media was founded in 2012. Since then realcombatmedia.com has become one of the most efficient premier international boxing and mixed martial arts online publications in the world. Our talented international team covers the latest combat news on a daily basis to provide the combat community with the best news in the industry for our readers. Our mission is to spread positive awareness of the combat sports to grow interest among the mainstream and to every region of the world.
English
No Comments Yet