Super middleweights Robin Krasniqi (46-4, 17 KOs) and Arthur Abraham (45-5, 30 KOs) faced off at the kickoff press conference for their official WBO eliminator to take place April 22 in Erfurt, Germany.
For the past couple of months, junior middleweights Tony Harrison and Jarrett Hurd have been gearing up for the biggest fight of their careers - a world title eliminator that would earn the winner a shot at Jermall Charlo's belt. Then, last Thursday, things changed. The stakes got bigger. A lot bigger.
Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, who promotes Manny Pacquiao, has made a deal with Duco Events, a New Zealand promotional company he has close ties to, for Pacquiao to defend the 147-pound belt against Australia's Jeff Horn in Brisbane, Australia. However, Pacquiao and adviser Michael Koncz have also been talking to an unnamed group about bringing Pacquiao's next fight to the United Arab Emirates, and Pacquiao said 10 days ago that his next bout would be in the UAE.
Square Ring Promotions and Hitz Entertainment Corporation announced today that they have reached an agreement for the Fres Oquendo vs. Shannon Briggs fight for the WBA World Heavyweight Championship.
The four-time world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, who ruled the ring alongside the likes of Lennox Lewis, Riddick Bowe and Mike Tyson during the 1980’s and 90’s, gave his thoughts on a possible cross-codes fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and UFC king Conor McGregor.
The flashy and outspoken Adrien Broner brings an audience. His action-packed welterweight fight on Saturday night in his hometown of Cincinnati against good pal Adrian Granados, which resulted in a split decision win for Broner in a razor-close battle, averaged 779,000 viewers for Showtime and peaked at 859,000, according to Nielsen Media Research.
How much would Alvarez, who has been boxing at 154 and 155 pounds, be willing to go up in weight? And how much would Chavez, who has been fighting between 168 and 172 in recent years (and struggling badly to make it), be willing to come down?
Super featherweight veteran Dat Nguyen (20-3, 7 KOs) scored a stunning sixth round TKO over previously undefeated prospect Miguel Flores (21-1, 9 KOs) on Tuesday night at Silver Street Studio in Houston, Texas. It was a see-saw battle for the first five rounds, but the 34-year-old Nguyen staggered Flores in round six and battered him to the canvas. Flores beat the count, but Nguyen pounced and brutally punished Flores until referee Lawrence Cole waved it off. Time was 1:02.
“The Amir Khan story has come out of nowhere,” hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum told. “It is total and complete bulls***. What’s happening is that Manny is talking to these people in Dubai who have offered him an insane amount of money. Whether (the offer) is real or not real — he is determined to explore it to see if it has any validity. That’s all I can say.”
Featherweight world titleholder Gary Russell Jr., of Capitol Heights, Maryland, has been a professional boxer since 2009 and has had 28 bouts, but he has never fought a single round in his home region of Washington, D.C. That will change when Russell ends an 11-month layoff and makes his second title defense against interim titleholder and mandatory challenger Oscar Escandon on March 11 in the main event of the first boxing event to take place at the new MGM National Harbor in Oxen Hill, Maryland, a Washington, D.C., suburb.
