Hope you boxing friends missed me as much as I missed you this week.
Back from vacation and re-energized I got to tell you all I Love Boxing. It’s been a hell of a week, with upsets, titles switching hands, and the loss of a legend.We have more battles set for this Saturday as we boxing fanatics call this lead up Fight Week. Today we talk about Seth Mitchell’s power coming through. Paulie Malinaggi doing his magic tricks on foreign soil. A bump in the road for Ismayl Sillkah’s career. Bad Chad gets though a dirty evening of work, all this and more on today’s Wire Report.
I had to start off the Wire Report with the most interesting fight this weekend at least in my opinion. Heavyweight action was in full bloom in Atlantic City on Saturday.A division that once held most of the fame and glory in the early days of my life.Today the heavyweight division has been exported to Germany by ways of two Ukrainian brothers infamously known as the Klitschko brothers. This weekend American heavyweight boxing had a match that flew under the radar for the casual fight fan when Seth “Mayhem” Mitchell (25-0-1, 19KOs) faced Chazz “The Gentleman”
Witherspoon (48-4, 36KOs). Two big men throwing everything possible to stop each other quickly. Chazz had gotten the best of Seth in the first round rocking him with an array of punches, but Mitchell held on. In the second round Mitchell got his legs back and was firing his punches, and connected enough on Witherspoon that I gave Mayhem the round. The third round was the decisive round where Seth Mitchell caught The Gentleman, with a ferocious left hook that sent Chazz to the canvas. Mitchell wrapped things up after that with a few well placed power shots, causing the ref to call the fight. It was great to see two heavyweights going balls out for the few rounds like they did, I go as far as calling it nostalgic even.
Upset city, is what I call the next two fights I wrote about. First off we have FNF’s upset when Ismayl ” The Black Russian” Sillkah (17-1, 14KOs) met his ring demise against a virtually unknown Russian fighter Denis “The Pirate” Grachev (12-0-1, 8KOs). Ismayl had the fight in his hands out boxing Grachev easily for 7 rounds. Ismayl was ahead in the scorecards in the 8th, when out of nowhere Grachev laid the thunder on Sillkah. The Ukrainian, born Sillkah got wobbled by a hard right hand then the pummeling began. When The Black Russian got dropped the ref saw enough and stopped the advances of Grachev by calling the fight. By stopping Sillkah, Grachev won the vacant NABF light heavyweight title. I never like seeing contenders lose, but I love when hype jobs get upset in the ring. So called boxing expert Doug Fischer from LA told reporters “Sillkah is the best light heavyweight prospect in the world”.
Well the Pirate made the Black Russian walk the plank…. Arrrr me Matey.
The other upset this weekend done by “The Magic Man” Paulie Malinaggi Aka #TK short for Twitter King (31-4, 7KOs) faced WBA welterweight champ Vyacheslav Senchenko (32-1,21KOs). The fight to place in front of Senchenko’s home crowd of Donetsk, Ukraine. Things started off bad for the ex champ since the bell first rang. Paulie boxed like his career depended on it, as it probably did. His speed advantage was apparent, throwing combos at will moving in and out, making his bigger opponent look sluggish and robotic. What made this event all the more amazing was Paulie’s Promise to Tweet between rounds. This brought on a couple of giggles, but the swelling being caused to Senchenko’s eye was no laughing matter. He Tweeted short but sweet tweets first “In the Ring” then asked his followers “How am I Looking?” and finished his ring antics with “If I get Robbed”.. He summed it all up with one amazing post fight Tweet “I TOLD EVERYONE I WAS GONNA MAKE HISTORY IN MORE WAYS THEN ONE!!! NEW CHAMP AND TWITTER KING!!!!”
The Main Event to all the matches this weekend or at least what should have been the main event. Was the passing of the torch ceremony when Bernard “the Executioner” Hopkins (52-6-2, 32KOs) faced “Bad” Chad Dawson (31-1,17KOs). I missed attending the fight with The Boxing Voice crew, due to my wedding anniversary, but I am some what glad I missed this snooze fest. Not only did I miss Dawson’s complete schooling of Hopkins claiming his light heavyweight title. I also missed one of the dirtiest fights Bhop has had in years. Full of head butts, pushing, holding and hitting, oh and Hopkins most famous move hip punches. I’m not a huge fan of Dawson, who am I kidding I’m not a Chad Dawson fan at all, but I gotta give credit where credit is due. Chad put up with a lot to get that win, he deserved that belt. I’m kind of glad I watched the fight at home with my wife who is a big fight fan. She summed it up like this “Thank God this fight is over, can we go to sleep now”. Married 4 years to that little lady.
That’s it for today’s Wire Report, check in tomorrow for some more up to the minute fight news and gossip.. Ladies and Gentleman it’s Fight Week, and if you don’t know what that means.. It means to check out Tha Boxing Voice/ Voice of the People show this Thursday night at 7:00pm on BlogtalkRadio.com, for Pre-fight Hype, and Sunday night at 7:00pm for the Post-fight analysis. Thx again Holla at your boy @number2snake