Boxing: The Week In Review

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Miguel Cotto - Saul Canelo AlvarezEvery week, there are numerous topics that even hardcore fans, not to mention casual fans, cannot keep up with. Every week, I will be here to help you catchup with the sport of boxing, going over the previous weekend’s results, as well as some of the hot breaking news topics that fans are talking about. This week was filled with rumors and some fights that were finally officially announced, so let’s get right into the boxing week in review.

Last Week’s Results

It was a quiet week for boxing, and there were no significant results from the fights over last week’s weekend. People got a chance to prepare for the upcoming bout from this weekend, which we will get to later.

NY Recruiting Canelo?

This past week, Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez had their four-city promotional tour that spanned over Los Angeles, Mexico, New York, and Puerto Rico. Most of what was said was expected as it was hyped as a possible fight of the year, fight of the decade, a fight for the fans, and the next fight in the great rivalry of Puerto Rican vs. Mexican fights.

However, one thing that was not totally expected was the reaction of the crowd to both Cotto and Canelo when they had the New York stop on Wednesday. In a turn of events, the normal New York Fan favorite, Miguel Cotto was booed by a good amount of the crowd. Cotto said he is not worried about Puerto Rico’s opinion of his career after boxing, but this will definitely be an eye-opener for many.

On the other hand, Canelo Alvarez, who has never fought in New York, seemed to command more of the crowd and looked to have had more fans at the, open to the public, press conference. Could this be enough to push Canelo to finally have a fight at either New York City’s Madison Square Garden or Brooklyn’s Barclays Center? I’m sure the Garden would love to host a possible Canelo-GGG fight at some point next year.

Floyd No Longer the Hot Ticket

Even before the PPV fight between Floyd Mayweather and Andre Berto, hash-tagged #HighStakes, was announced, fans claimed they would not watch or go to the fight and so far it appears at least half of that is true. With just two weeks to go before the fight, there are still thousands of tickets still left for the event to be held at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas. It is going to be very interesting to see how well the PPV does. CEO of Mayweather Promotions, Leonard Ellerbe said they are not worried about PPV buys, but if ticket sales end up being any indication of the PPV buys, they will be worried soon.

In other Mayweather news, Kenny Bayless has been named the referee for the fight on September 12th. It will be the 3rd straight Mayweather fight that Bayless will have refed.

Bob Arum Speaks

There was a lot of back and forth between Freddie Roach, the trainer of Manny Pacquiao, and Angel Garcia, the trainer and father of Danny Garcia regarding a possible fight between the two. However Top Rank Promotions CEO and Founder Bob Arum said the fight has not been discussed, and the only fighters he has discussed with Pacquiao are Terence Crawford and Amir Khan. When speaking about the plan of Timothy Bradley, Arum stated that he still thinks Rios is the most likely opponent and that he can see a fight against UK’s Kell Brook sometime next year.

Rios Speaks with TBVPodcast

Speaking of Rios, Brandon Rios came on and spoke with Tha Boxing Voice yesterday even. He was very open with his answers, and you can hear the entire interview on Tha Boxing Voice YouTube channel. Rios mentioned wanting to fight anyone and that he is upset about sitting on the sidelines since his win against Mike Alvarado in January. He said he has been told that he has a fight date in November but has not been told of an opponent, which is said he should know in a couple days.

One other topic of discussion that was brought up by Rios was him shedding light on one of the reasons that talks of a fight between him and Kell Brook broke down. Rios said that Brook’s team complained about the gloves that Rios uses. Rios, and I’m paraphrasing, pretty much said that Brook is no Mayweather and hasn’t earned the right to question those type of things and call those types of shots.

Golovkin Career Plans Still Intact

From the start, Gennady Golovkin’s plan was to unify the middleweight belts according to trainer Abel Sanchez. He is missing the WBC belt that Miguel Cotto has. There have been times where GGG has slightly swayed from this to get a big fight, saying he would go to 168 for both Chavez a year ago and Froch for a possible showdown in September.

However, at this point, it appears that the only person who could stop GGG from this plan would be a shot at Floyd Mayweather.

“Once we get to that point where he’s the unified champion, then we can talk about something else. There is nobody out there except for Floyd that has any relevancy or even importance for us to fight at any other weight. Until we unify, there’s no reason to talk about anything else except for Floyd,” said Golovkin trainer Abel Sanchez

Quillin-Zerafa at a Catch-Weight

On a conference call this week, it was announced by Promoter Lou DiBella that the Peter Quillin fight on September 12th against Michael Zerafa will be fought at a 163-pound catchweight. It will beg to questions as to whether Quillin is having trouble making 160 pounds again, he missed weight against Andy Lee in April, and if he’ll still be able to make that weight for his next fight on December 5th against Danny Jacobs.

Roy Jones Jr. Wants One More Shot

The 46-year-old Roy Jones Jr. wants a shot at newly crowned cruiserweight champion Krzysztof Glowacki. Although the fight is still not likely, Jones would like to have that fight after his fight against 42-year-old Tony Moran in Moran’s hometown of Liverpool, England. Jones had another fight scheduled against Danny Santiago, but it was canceled for the second time, with this time because of the threat of Hurricane Danny appears to have had on the island where the fight was to take place, Philipsburg, Sint Maarten.

Upcoming/Announced Fights:

Leo Santa Cruz vs. Abner Mares – This fight will take place in the Staples Center on Los Angeles, California. It’s a fight that should be action-packed and would have been much bigger if it took place two years ago. However, it is still a fight that is must see and will take place on ESPN, Saturday at 10 pm EST.

Adrien Broner vs. Khabib Allakhverdiev – This fight was announced this week and will take place at the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio on October 3rd. Broner is coming off a lost unanimous decision loss to Shawn Porter while Allakhverdiev is coming off his first career loss, also by unanimous decision against Jessie Vargas.