HBO drops Golden Boy

Yahoo’s Kevin Iole broke the news

HBO, the highest-rated boxing network, made the extraordinary decision Monday not to buy fights from Golden Boy Promotions, one of the sport’s two biggest promoters, for the foreseeable future.

 

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HBO Sports president Ken Hershman, who formerly ran the boxing program at rival Showtime, made the decision to part ways with Golden Boy after running into issues with company executives. Showtime hired Stephen Espinoza, the former Golden Boy legal counsel, to run its boxing program after Hershman left for HBO.

 

Since Espinoza joined Showtime, the vast majority of its televised boxing offerings have come from Golden Boy.

“In order to achieve our goal of the best fighters in the most compelling match-ups, we’ve decided to focus our efforts and resources on those strategic relationships where we better share common goals and business philosophies,” Hershman said in a statement.

 

Golden Boy 140lbs Tournament Part 2: Danny “Swift” Garcia

Overview of the entire tournament can be found here.

If there had to be an early favourite for the proposed 140lbs tournament then Danny Garcia is likely to be that man.

At 24 years old with a record of 25-0 the RING, WBC and WBA 140lbs champ is in his prime. His development has been steady and heavily featured on TV with key wins over the likes of Ashley Theophane, Mike Arnaoutis, Nate Campbell and Kendall Holt leading to his defining wins; two victories over the legendary Erik Morales and a brutal destruction of Amir Khan. A certain amount of criticism can be levelled at most of those wins; Theophane and Arnaoutis have never really lived up to the hype, Campbell was old and undersized, Holt past his best, Morales badly faded (especially in the second bout) and Khan coming off a loss but it is still an impressive ledger for a young man to have.

The intriguing thing is watching Garcia it’s often hard to work out what makes him so good…

Broner vs Malignaggi: Thoughts and Analysis

It’s not a bout that too many would have predicted happening. It’s not one that people were calling for or one that seemed natural to make. But I have to say I quite like the sound of the proposed bout between Paulie Malignaggi and Adrien Broner. To quote from a BadLeftHook article on the subject:

Golden Boy’s Richard Schaefer announced tonight at the Hopkins-Cloud post-fight press conference that a fight between WBA welterweight titlist Paulie Malignaggi and current WBC lightweight titlist Adrien Broner is done for June 22. The fight will be held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, most likely airing on HBO.

 

Broner (26-0, 22 KO) is coming off of a pair of thrashings at 135 pounds against Antonio DeMarco and Gavin Rees, while Malignaggi (32-4, 7 KO) hasn’t fought since October, when he won a disputed decision against Pablo Cesar Cano on the first Barclays boxing card.

 

You can also see Paulie’s thoughts on the bout here:

Golden Boy 140lbs Tournament: Garcia, Judah, Peterson, Matthysse, Khan Part 1: Overview

Part 2: Danny Garcia can be found here

It’s been an interesting few days for boxing, both domestically and internationally and one of the biggest news stories to come out is that Golden Boy are in the early stages of putting together a 140lbs tournament between their boxers. To quote Richard Schaefer, the Golden Boy CEO:

“My plan would be that the winner of Garcia and Judah will fight the winner of Peterson and Matthyse and then the winner of that fight will fight Amir Khan,”

It’s certainly an interesting proposition. Who wouldn’t want to see those bouts?

So it’s (semi-)official: Burns signs with Matchroom Sports

As the title says…

Here’s the press conference announcing it:

He does it again; Bernard Hopkins beats Tavouris Cloud

So he did it again.

And I was wrong.

In my preview/prediction for the bout I thought Hopkins would make it tricky and awkward for Cloud but Cloud would be active and aggressive enough to carry himself through with the additional aspect that if Cloud did land a shot he had a real possibility of earning a stoppage.

I was right about the first part and very wrong about the second.

Fight Night: Barker Dazzles, Groves smashes, Purdy clobbers and Connor impresses

It’s been an interesting week for British boxing, albeit mainly outside the ring. In the confusion and smoke the biggest victor appears to be Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Sport, who signed the talented 168lbs prospect/contender George Groves. But at the end of the day, much like trash talk before a big bout, it doesn’t really matter who wins outside the ring… it’s what happens inside that matters. And with three of Matchoom’s stars in action… including Groves… the week could have ended on a sour note if any of them lost.

The Main Event saw Darren Barker continue his return from injury against veteran Italian contender Simone Rotolo. Barker’s career has been blighted by injury, fighting only once in 2010, then having virtually a year off and then having another year out following his loss to Sergio Martinez. He came back with a crushing performance over former European champ Kerry Hope (although you can see what I thought of his European title win here). This bout, so swiftly on the heels of the last, was a chance for Barker to get the sort of consistency that only regular ring work can get you in addition to putting him against a solid European level operator. Rotolo has never been world class and at 37 is clearly coming to the end but he’s had nearly 40 bouts and hadn’t lost in over five years.

Friday Night Round-Up

A brief round-up of the Friday Night results.

The highlights:

Emmanuel Taylor TKO 8 Victor Manuel Cayo

Magomed Abdusalamov TKO 5 Victor Bisbal

Braulio Santos TKO 1 Kevin Hoskins

Hugo Centeno Jr UD 10 KeAndrae Leatherwood

Prince Arron PTS 6 Tyan Booth

Craig Watson RTD 4 Mark Lloyd

Shayne Singleton SD 10 Curtis Woodhouse

Andrey Klimov TD 7 Matias Ezequiel Gomez

Daniel Eduardo Brizuela UD 10 Diego Alberto Chaves

 

The agony and the ecstasy: How to judge a boxing bout

It’s one of those awful questions that comes up, especially after a close and controversial bout. Sometimes it’s unnecessary to really go into any detail… rounds are so obviously one-sided that it is absolutely clear who won or bouts are so clearly dominated by one boxer that it doesn’t matter whether a judge views it as a whitewash or gives the loser a sympathy round or two.

But sometimes it’s not so obvious.

British Boxing: Ricky Burns leaving Warren?

In a previous post I touched on some of the issues Frank Warren’s stable of boxers have been facing.

And it doesn’t appear to be getting any better for him…

Reports have come out indicating that Ricky Burns has now broken ties with Warren. Ricky and his management team had been making some pretty unhappy noises once news of a delay to his unification bout with Miguel Vasquez broke and were understandably not impressed when a previous bout for Burns was cancelled.