Fightnews.com

By Gabriel F. Cordero

Eduardo “Rocky” Hernández 129.6 vs. Marlyn Cabrera 128
(WBC youth world super featherweight title)

Alejandro Dávila 146.8 vs. Murilo Alves 146.8
Luis Vidales 147 vs. José Luis Rodríguez 147

Venue: Arena Coliseo in Mexico City
Pronoter: Promociones del Pueblo
TV: Televisa (Mexico)

By Joe Koizumi
Photos: Sumio Yamada

Filipino challenger Vic Saludar (18-3, 10 KOs), 104.75, wrested the WBO 105-pound belt as he dropped defending champ Ryuya Yamanaka (16-3, 5 KOs), 105, Japan, with a vicious right to the face in the seventh and won a unanimous decision over twelve hard-fought rounds on Friday in Kobe, Japan. Carlos Ortiz Jr. (US) tallied 116-111, Daniel Sandoval (US) saw it 115-112, and Pinit Prayadsab (Thailand) saw it 117-110, all for the newly crowned Saludar. The third man was Raul Caiz Jr. (US). Some 2,200 fans were in attendance at the Kobe Central Gymnasium.

We analyze a couple of reasons in Yamanaka’s forfeiture of his belt: (1) Ryuya fought on a wrong strategy as he, a typical speedster based on his footwork and jabbing, mixed it up to aim at Saludar’s weakness in the midsection and he might have to outbox and outleg the hard-punching Filipino more, and (2) he wasn’t as sharp and speedy as he had demonstrated a good form in halting highly regarded Moises Calleros after the eighth round of his initial defense this March. Continue reading “Saludar-Yamanaka Full Report”

Manny Pacquiao 146 vs. Lucas Matthysse 146.7
(WBA welterweight title)

Jhack Tepora 125.4 vs. Edivaldo Ortega 125.6
(WBA interim featherweight title)

Carlos Canizales 106.4 vs. Lu Bin 106.7
(WBA light flyweight title)

Moruti Mthalane 111.5 vs. Muhammad Waseem 111.3
(IBF flyweight title)

Venue: Axiata Arena in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Promoter: MP Promotions
TV: ESPN+

By Miguel Maravilla at ringside

Featherweight Joet Gonzalez (19-0, 11 KOs) of Glendora, California scored a ten round split decision over Rafael ‘Big Bang’ Rivera (25-1-2, 16 KOs) of Tijuana, Mexico on Friday night at The Novo by Microsoft at L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles in the Golden Boy Boxing on ESPN main event for the vacant NABO 126-pound title. Continue reading “Gonzalez edges Rivera for NABO title”

Regis Prograis 139.8 vs. Juan Jose Velasco 140
(WBC super lightweight diamond belt)

Teofimo Lopez 134.9 vs. William Silva 134
Erick De Leon 132.5 vs. Adrian Young 133.1
Jean Carlos Rivera 125.8 vs. Angel Luna 126.8
Fazliddin Gaibnazarov 138 vs. Kevin Johnson 137.1
Jonathan Guidry 235.3 vs. Aaron Chavers 228.8
Charles Conwell 153.4 vs. Travis Scott 155.3
Tyler Howard 164.9 vs. Javier Frazier 163.1
Jeremy Hill 136.1 vs. Charles Johnson 136
Jonathan Montrel 137.7 vs. Samuel Forjoe 140.6

Venue: Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana
Promoter: Top Rank/DiBella Entertainment
TV: ESPN and ESPN+ (undercard)

By Brad Snyder, The Undercard

Fast-rising heavyweight prospect Jermaine Franklin (16-0, 13 KOs), from Saginaw, MI, will be taking on local favorite Craig Lewis (14-2-1, 8 KOs) in a 10-round rumble tonight headlining Night Of Knockouts XIII at MotorCity Casino Hotel in Detroit. Franklin and his adviser Mike Acri spoke to Fightnews.com®.

Jermaine Franklin

Where is your development?

“I think I’m pretty good. I still have a lot of stuff to work on. I’m still working on being aggressive offensive wise.“

On his opponent, Craig Lewis:

“I fought him in the amateurs. It’s not the same. But he still fights with the same style. I think it’s going to be a good fight.”

Favorite punch to throw:

“The jab. My coaches used to make me jab until my arms fall off.” Continue reading “Rising heavyweight Franklin headlines tonight”

By Przemek Garczarczyk

Leo Khorolinsky, adviser of Murat Gassiev (26-0, 19 KO) talks about the July 21 IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO megafight with Oleksandr Usyk (14-0, 11 KO), all the boxing festivities around the WBSS final in Moscow on July 21, what makes Murat a special person…and maybe Diego Maradona sitting ringside for the biggest cruiserweight bout in the history!

Ring legend Manny Pacquiao is so anxious to get into the ring on Sunday, July 15 (July 14 in the US) against WBA welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse of Argentina that a little flick of his fist went a little too far.

That punch actually hurt trainer Buboy Fernandez during a mitts sessions at the Le Meridien Hotel boxing gym. Fernandez ended up with a chipped tooth. On Saturday, Pacquiao and Matthysse will tip the scales at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Center. MITEC is located at 8 Jalan Dutamas 2, Kompleks Kerajaan.

Manny Pacquiao is expected to easily hurdle today’s weigh-in ahead of WBA champion Lucas Matthysse at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Center (MITEC) Saturday (July 14) morning in Kuala Lumpur.

Weigh-in starts at 8AM and will be free to the public. “Fight of Champions,” the biggest boxing event ever to be shown in Malaysia in the last four decades, will have 10 more additional bouts in the undercard three of which are for world titles.

Pacquiao has been one of the smallest welterweight champions in history and has been tipping the scales three or four pounds lighter than the 147-pound (66.68 Kg.) limit since he first fought in the division 10 years ago. Continue reading “Pacquiao expecting no problems at weigh-in”

By Joe Koizumi
Photos: Sumio Yamada

Filipino challenger Vic Saludar (18-3, 10 KOs), 104.75, wrested the WBO 105-pound belt as he dropped defending champ Ryuya Yamanaka (16-3, 5 KOs), 105, Japan, with a vicious right in the seventh and won a unanimous decision (116-111, 115-112, 117-110) over twelve hard-fought rounds on Friday in Kobe, Japan.

(More to come)

Photos

The World Boxing Association becomes a Professional and Amateur organization

The World Boxing Association (WBA), in search of “The comeback of Boxing,” opens its doors to Olympic pugilism to achieve a true union in this sport and bring back the honor that this discipline had in the past. To achieve this goal, the WBA has summoned, through a letter, all National Boxing Federations to join this initiative. The intention is to achieve the systematic development of the sport, by the hand of specialists in the area. All this in favor of the two pillars of this discipline: the athletes and the fans.

“… As boxing is going through its issues there is another huge threat looming on the horizon: its negative public image, corruption, bureaucracy and continuing dysfunction of all parties involved, including amateurs and professionals of the sport of Boxing. Now they might lose participation in the Olympics. If this absurd decision were to take place, it would be an unprecedented setback for the sport”, reads the letter issued by the organization and signed by Gilberto Jesús Mendoza, President of the WBA, and Wladimir Klitschko, former World Heavyweight Champion and former Olympic Champion. Continue reading “The WBA opens its doors to Olympic Boxing”

Tyson Fury has vowed to abide by team orders and keep it strictly business when he turns to the second chapter of his comeback story against Francesco Pianeta in Belfast on August 18. Fury took showboating to a new level in the first of his return bouts against Sefer Seferi at the Manchester Arena in June, first setting the mood for the evening by planting a smacker on the equally game for a laugh Albanian.

Tyson now reveals that, for his duel with former world title challenger Pianeta, his trainer Ben Davison wants him to have his serious head on and not play to the expected sell-out crowd at Windsor Park, which also plays host to Carl Frampton defending his WBO world interim featherweight title against Luke Jackson as well as the WBC world flyweight title challenge of Paddy Barnes to the champion Cristofer Rosales.

“We saw the joker in the last camp, we saw the showman, the entertainer,” explained the 29-year-old. “Ben wants a serious approach this time and that is what he’ll get. All business in Belfast! Continue reading “Tyson Fury: Pianeta bout all business”

Tickets are now on sale to the general public for the upcoming slugfest between Former WBC International Light Heavyweight world champion Sullivan Barrera (21-2, 14 KOs) and Light Heavyweight Contender “Irish” Seanie Monaghan (29-1, 17 KOs) in the 10-round main event at the Sands Bethlehem Casino and Event Center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on Saturday, August 18, 2018. Tickets are priced from $105 to $55. The event is promoted by Main Events and World of Boxing and will be streamed live via Facebook.

Joet Gonzalez 125 vs. Rafael Rivera 125.2
(NABO featherweight title)

Seniesa Estrada 108.8 vs. Jhosep Vizcaino 108.2
Marciela Cornejo 164.2 vs. Samantha Pill 164.4
Christian “Chimpa” Gonzalez 134.8 vs. German Meraz 132.6
Richard Acevedo 152.6 vs. Quantavious Green 153.6

Venue: The Novo at L.A. Live, Los Angeles, California
Promoter: Golden Boy
TV: ESPN

By Brad Snyder, The Undercard
Photos: Bob Ryder

Jermaine Franklin 227.8 vs. Craig Lewis 241.5
Winfred Harris 158.3 vs. Dorell Van Horn 159
Frank Martin 140.6 vs. Jermon Houck (weigh in later)
Taylor Duerr 179.5 vs. Rocky Smith 182
Rydell Booker 239.9 vs. Domonic Jenkins 241.7
Anthony Barnes 171.9 vs. Dwayne Williams 171.3
Darryl Cunningham 160.4 vs. Daniel Craycraft (weigh in later)
Sinan Fradi 160.6 vs. Jared Chauvin 161.2
Cortez Chambliss 147.5 vs. Timotheus Coneal 149.7
Paolo Parente 207.6 vs. Charles Brown 279.8

Motor City Casino Hotel and CLIP Promotions presents Night of Knockouts 13 on Friday July 13, 2018. First fight is at 7pm and tickets are available at Ticketmaster.com or the SoundBoard Ticket Office.

Photos

Camps of WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders and Demetrius Andrade have ten days to negotiate and reach an agreement for their mandatory fight. If an accord is not reached within the time frame stated herein, a purse bid will be ordered pursuant to WBO Regulations of World Championship Contests. The minimum acceptable bid for the WBO middleweight division is $200,000. Any of the parties involved may request a purse bid procedure at any time during the negotiation process.

Photos: Mikey Williams/Top Rank

WBC interim super lightweight champion Regis “Rougarou” Prograis asked to fight in his hometown of New Orleans for a long time. After 21 bouts and more than six years as a pro, his wish is finally coming true. The Prograis homecoming will occur Saturday evening at the Lakefront Arena, where he will defend against fellow unbeaten Juan Jose Velasco live on ESPN. At Neyow’s Palace, located only a couple miles from the French Quarter, the fighters gathered for the final press conference.

Regis Prograis: “It’s a dream to come here. The Lakefront Arena, I grew up right around the corner from there. Like, in the car, you’d get there literally in two minutes. Just to be headlining there, that’s super important to me. I’m honored for it. I have to hide my excitement because I still have to fight. {Velasco} is going to try and knock me out, you know what I mean? So I gotta go out there and do my thing. I’m super excited. I might not show it, but I’m really excited to be fighting in my hometown, and not only that, my whole goal is to bring big-time boxing back to New Orleans. Not only a Regis Prograis fight, but one day we may get {Terence Crawford, who was seated in the audience} up here to fight. You know, one day, maybe me and {Crawford} might fight here at ’47. I’m focused. There are no distractions for me. This is normal. This is a part of the game.”

Juan Jose Velasco: “I’ve had a tremendous training camp, and I am thankful for this opportunity. I am going to take advantage of it. Regis is a great fighter. To be a great champion, you need to fight the best fighters. And I want to prove on Saturday night that I’m elite like him.” Continue reading “Prograis-Velasco Final Press Conference”

Former world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury will take on former Euro champ and two-time world title challenger Francesco Pianeta at Windsor Park in Belfast, Northern Ireland on August 18. Fury (26-0, 19 KOs) returned from two-and-a-half years out of the ring with a dominant stoppage of Sefer Seferi in Manchester on June 9 and aims to continue his march back towards the top against Pianeta (35-4-1, 21 KOs).

Pianeta has twice challenged for world honors, losing to Wladimir Klitschko in 2013 and to Ruslan Chagaev two years later, but he has recently dropped two of his last three.

Promoter Frank Warren said: “The Seferi fight is history and Pianeta is a far better operator than him. His level of opposition tells you that. Tyson had been out of boxing for a long time and Pianeta is a good opponent for what is Tyson’s second fight back after his break. Continue reading “Tyson Fury opponent named: Francesco Pianeta”

Photos: Tom Hogan – Hoganphotos/Golden Boy Promotions

Newly-crowned WBO junior middleweight world champion Jaime Munguia (29-0, 25 KOs) of Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, hosted a media workout Wednesday at the Westside Boxing Club ahead of the first defense of his title against former world champion Liam “Beefy” Smith (26-1-1, 14 KOs) in a 12-round main event Saturday, July 21 at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas. The fight will be televised live on HBO.

“We had a sensational training camp,” said Machado. “We have a great team, so I feel very good. The potential fight against Gennady Golovkin really got my name out there. It allowed me to get the opportunity to fight for a world title. I’m grateful for that. I’m also grateful that the NSAC didn’t allow me to fight against Golovkin because it led to this world title. Continue reading “Munguia: I’m a natural 160-pounder who drops down”

WBA super featherweight champion Alberto “Explosivo” Machado (19-0, 16 KOs) will put his WBA super featherweight world title on the line against undefeated #1 contender Rafael “Sweet Pea” Mensah (31-0, 23 KOs) on July 21 at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas. The fight will be televised live on HBO.

“It’s been about 10 months since my last fight. But it served me well,” said Machado. “It allowed me to get some rest and to work on some technical details I needed to work on. I had been boxing for 15 years straight, so it was a necessary rest…for this camp, I worked on strategy and technique. I had more time to travel to Los Angeles and work with Freddie Roach. During this camp, I really got to see why he is a Hall of Fame trainer. I got to see why he’s had so many world champions. On July 21, you will definitely see a new and improved Alberto Machado.”

Numerous media outlets reported that former heavyweight champions Lennox Lewis (52) and Vitali Klitschko (46) would return to the ring in an exhibition rematch during the annual WBC Convention, which will run from September 30 to October 5 at the Fairmont Grand Hotel in Kiev, Ukraine. However, those reports were news to Lennox Lewis. His team informed the WBC that Lewis has not even been contacted about it yet. Klitschko, the mayor of Kiev, has expressed interest in doing a charity exhibition with Lewis, but that’s all there is to it…so far.

Photos: Mikey Williams/Top Rank

Championship boxing is back in “The Big Easy” on Saturday at the Lakefront Arena. Native son Regis “Rougarou” Prograis (21-0, 18 KOs) defends the WBC super lightweight diamond belt against fellow unbeaten Juan Jose Velasco (20-0, 12 KOs), while unbeaten lightweight Teofimo Lopez (9-0, 7 KOs) goes against once-beaten William Silva (25-1, 14 KOs) for the vacant WBC Continental Americas lightweight title.

Fighters from Saturday’s card worked out for the media Wednesday at New Orleans Boxing Club.

Regis Prograis: “I’m not going to say I go in looking for the knockout, but I go in to try and hurt my opponent. Boxing is a brutal sport, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. I feel like I’m a killer. Of course, I’m nice. I can smile with ya’ll, but when I get in there, I’m a killer. When I hit somebody and I know they’re hurt, then I know I got them. My whole thing is if I hit them and I see some type of weakness in their body, or I see something going, then I know automatically I got them. It’s over.”

Juan Jose Velasco: “The pressure is not an issue for me. The pressure is on Regis. I’m not expected to do much, which is fine by me. I’ll prove the experts wrong. I feel like everyone is pulling for him, that it’s a gimme fight for Regis. Everyone can talk, but on Saturday, he’ll have to fight.” Continue reading “Regis Prograis: I’m a killer”

Rising contender Ladarius Miller (16-1, 5 KOs) will face Dennis Galarza (16-3, 9 KOs) a 10-round lightweight match that headlines on Bounce Friday, August 3 from Sam’s Town in Las Vegas.

The telecast also features a 10-round welterweight showdown between Cesar Barrionuevo (34-3-2, 24 KOs) and Abel Ramos (19-3-2, 14 KOs) plus unbeaten junior welterweight Juan Heraldez taking on Kevin Watts (11-2, 4 KOs) in a bout scheduled for 10 rounds.

Tickets for the event, which is being promoted by Mayweather Promotions, begin at $25, are on sale now.

Photos: Wendell Alinea/MP Promotions

Manny Pacquiao during workout at Pop-up Gym in the Le Meridien Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: “I am ready. I have never predicted the outcome of any of my fights but this training camp is special for many reasons. I am motivated. I am happy. I am hungry. I am excited to show the world a new Manny Pacquiao on July 15 (July 14 in the US) at the Axiata Arena here in Kuala Lumpur.” Continue reading “Manny promises “new Pacquiao” at workout”

Report, Photos by Joe Koizumi

Fast-improving Japanese speedster, WBO 105-pound champ Ryuya Yamanaka (16-2, 5 KOs) will risk his belt against #3 Filipino Vic Saludar (17-3, 10 KOs) in Kobe, Japan, on this coming Friday. They participated in a press conference with the WBO officials in attendance, as follows: referee Raul Caiz Jr. (US); judges Daniel Sandoval and Carlos Ortiz Jr. (both US) and Pinit Prayadsab (Thailand); supervisor Leon Panoncillo (US).

Yamanaka, making his second defense, said, “I’ll demonstrate my own boxing and successfully defend my belt without doubt.”

The highly regarded Saludar also confidently said, “I’ll win the belt for everybody of my mother country, Philippines.”

Continue reading “Yamanaka-Saludar Press Conference”