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Weighing in at 185 pounds, aged 44, from the city of Las Vegas in Nevada is the man who bought Ultimate Fighting Championship for $2m, and turned it into an industry generating annual revenues of $500m. He is now ready to export it to Europe and Asia.

Lorenzo Fertitta is the modern-day Don King, the boxing promoter who in effect owned the sport in the days of Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and Mike Tyson. Mr Fertitta rules not over boxing but over UFC, a combat sport in a caged ring, ostensibly built around martial arts.


US senator John McCain once dubbed it “human cockfighting”. Mr Fertitta prefers to see it as a combination of four Olympic sports – boxing, wrestling, judo and taekwondo.

Its popularity in the US, Canada and Brazil allows its top practitioners to command up to $5m a fight, or $200,000 a minute if fights go the distance, plus profit-sharing from the sport when they retire.

Pay-per-view TV brings in the revenues in profit-sharing deals with Fox Sports and other broadcasters. In Canada and the US, UFC will this year generate about 6m pay-per-view transactions at $50 each.

Globo in Brazil pays UFC a guaranteed fee in return for the revenues from 400,000 subscribers, who pay $40 a month, though the deal reverts to revenue-sharing in 2015. BT Sport has signed a deal for the UK.

Mr Fertitta says his sports model is unique: “We produce, own and control all of our content.”

The brothers got UFC on the cheap when the sport was on the canvas and being counted out. They legitimised it by tightening the rules – no eye-gouging, groin attacks, headbutting, small joint manipulation and sundry other fouls.

They enlisted medical research to vouchsafe for its relative safety (compared with boxing) and drew audiences through a combination of free-to-air broadcasts and Ultimate Fighter, a reality TV show.

It has also benefited from the rise of martial arts in the health and fitness industry. There is now a UFC Gym business with 100 outlets.

“We’ve just taken a sport, organised it and branded it,” says Mr Fertitta. “That’s all we’ve done.”

Expanding UFC into other regions will be launched on the back of reality TV shows for each market. The show airs in Brazil and Australia, and it will go to Canada and China. “We are looking at that as a defining moment for the company,” says Mr Fertitta.


Lorenzo Fertitta boxing clever to export UFC - FT-com

US-made sports have a poor history of exporting their products. American football is making steady but slow progress in the UK; basketball’s move into China remains a work in progress; baseball is not even trying.

But Mr Fertitta says capital expenditure for expanding UFC is low. “It’s a very transportable business,” he says, and not an American sport but a global one, now broadcast in 148 countries.

UFC should be able to break into some new markets relatively easily, underpinned by a UFC virtual game being developed by EA Sports. Mr Fertitta points out that martial arts originated in Asia.

Other new markets, such as Europe, may require the kind of education that the US required a decade ago after Mr McCain came out with his derisory description of UFC.

“We have a lot of work to do in Europe. It’s a very complex group of cultures and countries,” said Mr Fertitta.

His missionary for the European market is Garry Cook, former chief executive of Manchester City, charged with organising a series of European fights in cities such as London, Stockholm and Istanbul. A schedule of fights in Asian cities has also been drawn up. The gym business is also being exported to Europe.

UFC is a young sport. It is growing rapidly, but has it got staying power or will it fade away when the next big thing comes along?

What gives it longevity, says Mr Fertitta, is that UFC is rooted in the origins not merely of sport but of life itself.

“I truly believe this was the first sport on earth, before somebody kicked a ball through a net, or somebody threw a ball through a hoop or hit a ball with a stick,” he says.

“Somebody threw a punch, they got into a scrap and if anybody was standing around they all stood and watched. It was more UFC-style than Queensberry rules.”

The next step, he adds, is owning the distribution channel. He says UFC will be “the first digital sport”, allowing it to deal directly with the consumer. That kind of talk is enough to send traditional sports broadcasters into a cold sweat.

UFC may have a way to go to realise that ambition, but it does appear to be making capital out of the vacuum created by boxing’s tarnished reputation, a sport blighted by chaotic organisation, medical concerns and a dearth of personalities.

“I don’t see boxing completely going away, but it’s become less and less relevant in the US and around the world,” Mr Fertitta says.

He and brother Frank knew the power of brands and the importance of customer relations when Lorenzo’s old school friend Dana White, a central figure in the early history of UFC, suggested they look at the sport in 2001.

Their late father created Station Casinos, a Las Vegas gambling group which has veered wildly between flotation, leveraged buyout, bankruptcy and recovery. Station, under Frank Fertitta, is now plotting how to exploit the nascent US online gambling market.

Blake Ferguson is set to make his boxing debut on the undercard of next Wednesday night's bout between Anthony Mundine and Shane Mosley at Sydney Entertainment Centre.

Ferguson, who was sacked by Canberra before the end of the NRL season, is being mentored by his Mundine, who is his second cousin.

The 23-year-old NSW Origin star is yet to find an NRL club and is unlikely to have a contract registered by the NRL for the start of next season.

He has been training with Mundine and will debut at heavyweight level on the undercard of his bout against Mosley, the seven times world champion who has been in Sydney for two weeks preparing for the fight.

Ferguson was shown the door by Canberra after failing to show up for training and not responding to calls from the club in what were the latest in a long list of off-field misdemeanours.

His axing followed a charge of indecent assault that's still before the courts following a night out with former teammate Josh Dugan in June.

With his elder cousin Mundine by his side at Tony Mundine's gym in Redfern, Ferguson apologised to the Raiders for his actions, but said he was dealing with a number of personal issues at the time.

"Looking back at it I probably did the wrong thing by the club," Ferguson said.

"I feel sorry for the fans and the coaching staff and the players that I let down.

"But I had to leave for a reason as there were a few in-house personal things going on in my life."

Ferguson made the decision to go into the ring just two weeks ago and looked light years away from professional standard as he worked on the pads in the ring with Mundine senior on Tuesday.

However, Anthony Mundine said it was more important that Ferguson restored his focus to get back on the straight and narrow.

"I had to get his mind focused and his mindset right and boxing is the perfect outlet to let him escape from all the dramas of the past," Mundine said.

"Obviously he's a novice and no Mike Tyson. But he's putting his best foot forward and has improved a hell of lot over the last few weeks and had three full sparring sessions now."

Ferguson said his future in rugby league was in the hands of the NRL and hoped boxing would help convince the powers that he was on the right path to redemption.

"Training is a lot harder than rugby league and it has freed my mind a bit," he said.

"I am going good, just working through a few things. After the fight I will look at my football again as there are a few opportunities out there."

After leaving Canberra, Ferguson spent time working as a labourer and realised he was in danger of throwing away a lucrative career.

"I was working for two weeks and it opened my eyes a bit," he said.

"There was all these million dollar houses and I was thinking `I should own one of these'.

"So I thought I should go back and do something I'm good at."

Read more: Blake Ferguson to make boxing debut on Anthony Mundine undercard

Blake Ferguson is set to make his boxing debut on the undercard of next Wednesday night's bout between Anthony Mundine and Shane Mosley at Sydney Entertainment Centre.

Ferguson, who was sacked by Canberra before the end of the NRL season, is being mentored by his Mundine, who is his second cousin.

The 23-year-old NSW Origin star is yet to find an NRL club and is unlikely to have a contract registered by the NRL for the start of next season.

He has been training with Mundine and will debut at heavyweight level on the undercard of his bout against Mosley, the seven times world champion who has been in Sydney for two weeks preparing for the fight.
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Ferguson was shown the door by Canberra after failing to show up for training and not responding to calls from the club in what were the latest in a long list of off-field misdemeanours.

His axing followed a charge of indecent assault that's still before the courts following a night out with former teammate Josh Dugan in June.

With his elder cousin Mundine by his side at Tony Mundine's gym in Redfern, Ferguson apologised to the Raiders for his actions, but said he was dealing with a number of personal issues at the time.

"Looking back at it I probably did the wrong thing by the club," Ferguson said.

"I feel sorry for the fans and the coaching staff and the players that I let down.

"But I had to leave for a reason as there were a few in-house personal things going on in my life."

Ferguson made the decision to go into the ring just two weeks ago and looked light years away from professional standard as he worked on the pads in the ring with Mundine senior on Tuesday.

However, Anthony Mundine said it was more important that Ferguson restored his focus to get back on the straight and narrow.

"I had to get his mind focused and his mindset right and boxing is the perfect outlet to let him escape from all the dramas of the past," Mundine said.

"Obviously he's a novice and no Mike Tyson. But he's putting his best foot forward and has improved a hell of lot over the last few weeks and had three full sparring sessions now."

Ferguson said his future in rugby league was in the hands of the NRL and hoped boxing would help convince the powers that he was on the right path to redemption.

"Training is a lot harder than rugby league and it has freed my mind a bit," he said.

"I am going good, just working through a few things. After the fight I will look at my football again as there are a few opportunities out there."

After leaving Canberra, Ferguson spent time working as a labourer and realised he was in danger of throwing away a lucrative career.

"I was working for two weeks and it opened my eyes a bit," he said.

"There was all these million dollar houses and I was thinking `I should own one of these'.

"So I thought I should go back and do something I'm good at."

Read more: Blake Ferguson to make boxing debut on Anthony Mundine undercard

Larry Holmes ruled the heavyweight boxing scene for 71/2 years and brought fame to his hometown of Easton thanks to the nickname "The Easton Assassin."

From 1978 to 1983, the success and popularity of Holmes in the Lehigh Valley gave birth to such fighters as light welterweight Willie "Fireball" Rodriguez, light heavyweight and heavyweight Art "The Breeze" Bayliss of Allentown, welterweight Angel Cruz of Bethlehem and Reading super middleweight Steve Little.

But even they haven't done for boxing in the Lehigh Valley as much as Russell Peltz of Philadelphia and Jay Newman have done in the past year or so.

Peltz is promoting the Legends of Boxing fight series at the Sands Bethlehem Event Center and Newman is promoting Fight Night at SteelStacks just a few blocks down Founders Way. Between the two promoters, there will be three shows in three months: September, October and November

The Sands Casino in Bethlehem, coupled with the intimate setting of the Musikfest Café at SteelStacks, are creating a renaissance of boxing cards in the area featuring competitive matches and local fighters. And while places like Las Vegas, New York and Atlantic City have traditionally held the biggest fights and will likely continue to do so, Bethlehem is poised to carve its niche among the better boxing venues in the Northeast.

"The Lehigh Valley could be the next mecca of boxing if we can start developing our own fighters up there," said Peltz, a Philadelphia-based promoter and Temple University graduate who used to run the fight cards at the legendary Blue Horizon in Philly. "Right now we have Ronald Cruz and Jerome Rodriguez, but we won't be able to depend on Ronald forever, so we need to develop some hometown fighters."

The Sands has been host to six boxing cards since 2011 — five inside the SBEC since June 2012 — and plans another for Nov. 16 featuring up-and-coming welterweight Ronald Cruz of Bethlehem as the feature attraction.

Newman is promoting Fight Night at SteelStacks II tonight with undefeated Luis Ortiz of Miami, the No. 2 heavyweight contender according to the WBA, in the main event of a seven-bout card that includes four local boxers plus two bouts pitting undefeated fighters against each other.

Bernard Fernandez, the former Philadelphia Daily News boxing writer, said the Lehigh Valley could fill a void left by vacated boxing venues in Philadelphia and Atlantic City. Philadelphia's legendary Blue Horizon has been shuttered for redevelopment, and promoters are looking elsewhere to stage fights.

"Philadelphia, to me, is still the place that produces more good fighters per capita than anywhere in the country," said Hernandez, a past president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. "But they need to have outlets where they can fight. Bethlehem has been a good showcase for them. You certainly can't characterize it as a place just for club-type fights. It has the potential to be a cut above that."

Boxing in mid-sized American towns could play the role it did in bigger cities such as Detroit, New York and Philadelphia when young men escaped the streets for the mean-but-beautiful sweet science of boxing.

"A lot of outside-the-area fighters are training here," said Newman, pointing out Curtis Steven, a middleweight fighting in Madison Square Garden on Nov. 2, as one of the new big names training at Larry Holmes' old gym on Canal Street in Easton.

"Back in Larry's era, that's how it was here," said Newman, who is originally from Wilkes-Barre but joined the Holmes camp in 1987 in time for Holmes' first comeback in the fight against Mike Tyson. Holmes had fighters coming in from all over, including people like Sugar Ray Leonard, while also keeping around some of the older legends of boxing like Archie Moore as gym mainstays.

"HBO and Showtime are coming here to film these guys over at Larry's," Newman said. "It's not quite Kronk's in Detroit or Gleason's in New York, but it's close. The guys training here are running on the towpath [the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor trail] just like Larry used to do. Plus it's Larry's gym, so there's good incentive."

Giving fighters local heroes and a local place to fight on a competitive show are keys to building boxing, which is experiencing a bit of an uptick as a sport after years of relative obscurity that followed decades of popularity. Much of the financial gain for fights come from pay-per-view TV events.

"First you contract the fighters," said Peltz, who began in the business in August 1969, the year he graduated from Temple with a degree in journalism.

"Not too many promoters can make competitive fights at this level," he said. "You're always finding guys who want to get their fighter wins to build up their record to get on Showtime or HBO where there is big money involved. Those kinds of shows are hurting boxing because they produce one-sided fights. We call them Cowboy vs. Indian shows. People are paying $50 to $75 to see good guys vs. bad guys. You can tell by who sits in which corner who is supposed to win. Fans aren't that stupid to keep paying all that money for one-sided matches."

Peltz said he gets criticized sometimes as a promoter because there aren't enough quick knockouts.

"That's the worst feeling for me, when I have a fight that's not competitive and a guy falls down from a jab to the stomach," Peltz said. "I was around when boxing was an elite sport and a lot of the best fighters would fight anyone on any day. Now, a promoter can help a guy get to 26-0 to get on HBO in order to make a big payday, and he could be fighting another 26-0 guy who came up the same way."

Peltz pointed to Cruz's 10th-round knockout win over Miami's Alberto Morales in September as an example of the ideal way fights should go. Cruz, the local hero, wasn't having an impressive showing, and the outcome of a judge's decision was questionable at best. Cruz's cornermen told him he was losing the fight

HBO Sports returns with an action-packed night of boxing programming, headlined by a junior welterweight title bout featuring two of the sport’s most exciting fighters when WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING: MIKE ALVARADO VS. RUSLAN PROVODNIKOV is seen SATURDAY, OCT. 19 at 9:45 p.m. (live ET/tape-delayed PT) from the 1stBank Center in Broomfield, Colo., exclusively on HBO. The HBO Sports team of Jim Lampley, Max Kellerman and Roy Jones Jr. will call all the action, which will be available in HDTV, closed-captioned for the hearing impaired and presented in Spanish on HBO Latino.

Other HBO playdates: Oct. 20 (8:30 a.m.) and 21 (1:00 a.m.)

HBO2 playdates: Oct. 20 (4:30 p.m.) and 22 (11:30 p.m.)

In a 12-round showcase event, Denver’s Mike Alvarado (34-1, 23 KOs) defends his home turf and 140-pound title against Ruslan Provodnikov (22-2, 15 KOs) of Russia in a junior welterweight clash, marking HBO’s first boxing telecast from the Mile High City. After beating Brandon Rios in March to avenge his only career loss, Alvarado, 32, looks to continue his rise in the junior welterweight ranks. The 29-year-old Provodnikov, who lost by decision to welterweight champion Timothy Bradley Jr. in a sizzling contest last March on HBO, looks to foil those plans by going toe-to-toe with the taller Alvarado. Both of their previous bouts are widely considered Fight of the Year candidates, making this one of the most-anticipated fall matchups.

Leading off the telecast will be the HBO replay of the welterweight title showdown between Timothy Bradley Jr. and Juan Manuel Marquez. The two accomplished pros went 12 hard-fought rounds last Saturday night on HBO Pay-Per-View® in Las Vegas. Bradley emerged the winner and kept his undefeated record intact with a split decision triumph.

An added social media element to enhance Saturday's telecast from Broomfield will be the posting of highlight clips from the live HBO telecast on the @HBOBoxing twitter account. @HBOBoxing is working with the innovative software provider SnappyTV to introduce this feature to the sport of boxing. You can find the video clips and retweet during and after the fight telecast by following @HBOBoxing.

“Legendary Nights: The Tale of Gatti-Ward,” an all-new installment of the Emmy®-winning documentary series, debuts immediately following the Alvarado-Provodnikov bout. The 75-minute special revisits the epic three-fight series featuring Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward that concluded ten years ago on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City.

Follow HBO boxing news at hbo-com/boxing, on Facebook at facebook-com/hboboxing and on Twitter at twitter-com/hboboxing-

All HBO boxing events are presented in HDTV. HBO viewers must have access to the HBO HDTV channel to watch HBO programming in high definition.

The executive producer of WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING is Rick Bernstein; producer, Jon Crystal; director, Marc Payton.




‘World Championship Boxing’ Returns Saturday Night on HBO - Ratings | TVbytheNumbers

You wouldn’t know it from watching boxer Gennady Golovkin in the ring. His fights rarely last more than a few rounds until he knocks out his opponent. Only two of his last 14 bouts have lasted more five rounds; ten of them were finished in three rounds or less. That’s nine minutes, if you’re counting.

But outside the ring, Gennady Golovkin is a patient man.

The 31-year-old middleweight from Kazakhstan via Germany now living and training in Big Bear, California says he has all the time in the world to get to where he wants to be at the top of the boxing world, to the point where his name becomes as well known as Mayweather or Pacquiao.

Knowledgeable fight fans aren’t so patient. They want to see the boxer nicknamed “Triple G” take on the big names of boxing, anywhere from 154 pounds to 168 pounds. Miguel Cotto. Sergio Martinez. Canelo Alvarez. Floyd Mayweather. They believe he can do the same kind of knockout damage to them as he has to opponents like Grzegroz Proksa, Nobuhiro Ishida, and Matthew Macklin.

In the meantime, expect another early round departure when Golovkin fights Brooklyn native Curtis Stevens on November 2 at Madison Square Garden. It will be televised by HBO.

Golovkin is a study in contradictions. He’s a predator in the ring with the highest knockout percentage of any active boxer. He is so much of a threat in the ring that many potential opponents avoid him. But he possesses a gentle demeanor with impeccable manners outside the ring. He looks you directly in the eye when he shakes hands with you. He is rarely without a smile on his face.

And why not? Golovkin is doing exactly what he loves to do. He loves to work, to box, to fight and to knock people out. Even after a hard day of sparring, Golovkin was his polite, congenial self during a recent interview with Ringside Seat.

When the fight with Curtis Stevens was first announced, Stevens engaged in some trash talking stunts which included posting a mock-up coffin marked “GGG” on the top, for Golovkin’s nickname “Triple G.” Golovkin brushed it off like dirt on his shoulders when asked about it. “He’s got a big mouth, every day. He’s just talking too much, ugh. This is sport, this is not show biz. I don’t respect that. This is not real.”

Golovkin plans to shut up Stevens in the ring, predicting a knockout. It is a boxing cliché about “doing your talking in the ring.” Golovkin speaks several languages and is adding English quickly, something he’s working as hard at as he works in the gym. But boxing is the language he speaks fluently as a native.

To those who want to see him fight the big names now, Golovkin assures fans that he will, in time.

“Right now, I feel great. I need just time. Not a big step but step by step,” said Golovkin. “It’s very important that I always have a good fight” every outing, said Golovkin. “Next year will be a good time for me,” he added.

Does that mean a fight in 2014 with someone like Miguel Cotto? Golovkin respects Cotto, which is an important aspect of the sport to him. Of Cotto’s recent fight with Delvin Rodriguez, Golovkin said, “He has come back, he’s a great fighter.” Facing Cotto: “I think it is a great fight for the fans, for us. In the future, yes.”

In the meantime, Golovkin is not overlooking his opponent on November 2 at Madison Square Garden, one of his favorite venues where his Kazakh fans come out in big numbers. “I work every day. I fight, fight, fight, every day.” He continues to spar in training with much bigger boxers, cruiserweights and light heavyweights, because “I’m beating them up” and he runs through several at a time. With a laugh, he did admit his sparring days are tough ones. He doesn’t like it any other way.

The World Boxing Association has ruled that Golovkin (27-0, 24 KOs) must face interim-champion Martin Murray (25-1-1, 11 KOs) assuming both win their upcoming fights. It’s all but a lock. Murray will travel to Sydney, Australia for a bout with Garth Wood (12-3-1), 8 KOs on December 11. Murray’s sole loss was a decision against Sergio Martinez earlier this year. Many observers (including me) believed Murray won the fight. It’s an outstanding potential matchup to look forward to in early 2014.

Then perhaps it’s a bout with Cotto, and from there? Golovkin’s patience may pay off exactly as planned.

In the meantime, Golovkin will go about his business, which includes improving his English, meeting media and fans, and mowing down one opponent after another. When he isn’t wearing a cardigan sweater looking like your neighbor down the street, he might show up wearing a hoodie depicting one of boxing’s great champions like Tyson or Ali. “I’m thinking of them. They are the great ones.” Will he be one of them? “In the future.“

Don’t wait. Watch Gennady Golovkin now and you can be part of the Triple G “I knew him when” club.

See the killer in the cardigan, Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin vs. Curtis Stevens in “Monsters Collide” on HBO from Madison Square Garden in New York on Saturday, November 2, at 10 p.m. ET.

Read more: Gennady Golovkin stands on the brink of boxing star status | Washington Times Communities
Follow us: @wtcommunities on Twitter

Frampton was on the front foot from the start against a game opponent, and forced the referee to step in during round six to the delight of the partisan crowd.

The win puts 'The Jackal' at 17-0 in what was billed as an IBF super-bantamweight title eliminator. That belt is currently held by Spaniard Kiko Martinez, whom Frampton stopped in his last outing in February.

Injury and a managerial change from Matchroom to Frank Warren - done to allow Barry and Shane McGuigan more control as Frampton's promoters - caused the eight-month gap in the 26-year-old's schedule, during which Martinez became champion.

In the chief support bout, Eamonn O’Kane overcame a round 10 knockdown to win a 12-round unanimous decision over Kerry Hope in middleweight action.


Boxing - Frampton stops Parodi in six - Yahoo Eurosport UK

He's used to fighting for titles in the boxing ring, but next weekend Carl ‘The Jackal’ Frampton will be changing his life with a wedding ring as he says “I do” to his knockout new wife. The Tigers Bay boy will wed his stunning fiancee Christine Dorrian, who hails from Poleglass, next Sunday in a lavish ceremony at The Old Inn in Crawfordsburn.

The nuptials are bound to be a who’s who of boxing royalty — and in Carl’s corner to calm his pre-wedding nerves will be best mate and Olympic boxing hero, Paddy Barnes.

And while Barry McGuigan’s 26-year-old protege was fully focused on Saturday's sold-out clash against Frenchman Jeremy Parodi at The Odyssey, Frampton admitted he was thinking about keeping his face in one piece for the wedding pictures.

Speaking before last Saturday's big fight, European champion Frampton said: “I don’t want any cuts or anything to spoil the wedding photos — I'm confident that I’ll do a good job.

“Then I’ll be able to go off on my stag — I wanted to go to the beer festival in Munich but it’s too close to the wedding so I’ll be staying at home. I’ve got paintballing booked.”

Unlike most grooms, Carl revealed that he has overseen every aspect of his and Christine’s big day.

“Christine calls me ‘Groomzilla’ because I have been so involved, wanting everything to be sorted,” he said.

The couple first met at Kelly’s nightclub in Portrush, but Christine revealed it took Carl a year to ask her out because he was so shy.

Now living in Lisburn, the happy pair have a daughter, Carla, together.

In the past, Carl has paid heartfelt tribute to his other half for her support throughout his career.

“When I go away I do feel that I’m being selfish, leaving the two of them behind and even the week of the fight when I’m back in Belfast I stay in a hotel to stay focused on the fight.

“So I really admire the fact that Christine is prepared to stay alone and to put her own career on hold,” he said.

Christine, who is a criminology graduate, said: “For some relationships I’m sure that there would be resentment because you’re the one left here looking after everything but I know that he’s doing it for us.”

Mrs Frampton-to-be was there supporting her man on Saturday, but she said she doesn’t find it easy to watch him fight.

“It used to be that I was good at watching Carl fight but it has got harder and harder and the last time in the Odyssey I just sat and held onto the chair and cried through the whole fight,” she said.

“It’s tougher now because it’s his career — so much depends on him because we have bills to pay and we have Carla — it’s a real pressure now.

“I have confidence in him but I just don’t want to see him get hurt.”

Saturday's Odyssey fight was also attended by TV star Eamonn Holmes.

Eamonn tweeted to pledge his support to the “special fighter”.


Carl Frampton: It must be glove for Belfast boxing champ - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

Australian boxing’s ability to descend into farce is completely unrivalled. Shane Mosley pulling out of his fight with Anthony Mundine the day before it was due to take place is just the latest in a long line of embarrassments for the sport.

"It's unfortunate that this fight will not be taking place, and we apologise to all of Shane's Australian fans, but there are contracts in place for a reason, and when the terms are not adhered to, we have no choice but to protect our fighter, and that's what happened here," said Richard Schaefer, Mosley's promoter, in a statement. In a 20-year career, Mosley has never done anything similar, so there's no reason to disbelieve him.

The promotion had been dogged by problems from the start; there were rumours of poor ticket sales and “Sugar Shane” had already threatened to pull out when an earlier sum wasn’t promptly paid. Draw your own conclusions.

It’s a pity, because Mosley v Mundine was actually set to be a pretty good fight. Not because either man is a true contender at this stage; the opposite, it was set to be a good fight because they’re not. The once formidable Mosley is so faded and punch-affected that he had to be subtitled in TV advertisements for the fight, which put him on about the same level as Mundine, who was never a truly world-class fighter.

As much as Mundine is seen in a negative light in many quarters – his comment that America had “brought 9/11 on themselves" still rears its head more than a decade on– this particular cancellation wasn’t his fault, at least not in the short term. And to his credit, he was extremely classy at a press conference this afternoon: "I lay no blame on Mosley. He's just a fighter trying to take care of himself. He's just trying to get paid."

But it’s not difficult to see how his unpopularity with some and previous fights against low-quality opposition led to poor ticket sales and a lack of interest in the promotion.

His Muhammad Ali/Floyd Mayweather Lite schtick became too much for many to bear when he accused Daniel Geale of being an “Uncle Tom” before their last fight. He boasts that every one of his fights has been on pay-per-view, which means that he has expected his fans to fork out for 49 fights, the vast majority of which were not against world-class fighters. I’d be shocked if anyone outside his immediate family has bought them all.

And Mundine v Mosley offered nothing punters hadn’t seen before. A down on his luck hall-of-famer, lured to Australia with pile of money – check. A footballer moonlighting as a boxer in a complete and utter mismatch – check. And, of course, a barren undercard light on top-class talent, designed to help everyone catch up on sleep before the main event at midnight.

So what happens now? There’s some talk of the fight being rescheduled in six weeks’ time with Mundine’s manager, Khoder Nasser, as the promoter. But Mosley is unlikely to return and you can hardly blame him.

Australian boxing, meanwhile, has been left with a huge black eye that won’t be remedied with a cold steak. It will be that much more difficult to convince international stars to visit our shores in future. As yet it’s unclear whether the punters who bought tickets to Mundine v Mosley will get refunds. Even if they do, they’ll think twice about buying tickets to a boxing match again. Mundine can’t be blamed completely for Australia’s boxing’s shrunken fanbase and a jaded public but his controversial comments and so-so opponents haven’t helped.

Journalist Phil Lutton suggests the sport needs a crisis summit. That’d be nice, but it won’t happen. If this episode proves anything it’s that boxing is the free market gone wild and nobody is looking out for anyone but themselves.

Luckily Australia still has some very good fighters. Middleweight Daniel Geale, despite a close loss in his last outing, is genuinely world class and nice guy to boot. Former Olympians Jeff Horn and Damien Hooper are both exciting and skilled. There are good fighters at every level training in gyms around the country.

It’s often said that “boxing is dead”. It’s certainly true to say it’s on life support in Australia. But people do love to see blokes punch one another in the head, so fans of the sport just have to hope that the next generation of boxers (and promoters) learn from the mistakes of the current era.




Mundine v Mosley cancellation is Australian boxing's latest farce | Sport | theguardian-com

In one case, a promoter wanting to sign a promising young boxer visited him at his grandmother's home in Port Elizabeth.

When his attempt to woo the fighter with fanciful promises failed, he tried Plan B - pulling out a pistol. The fighter shouted for his grandmother, a no-nonsense lady, who quickly sent the promoter packing, gun and all.

There are more tales: promoters trying to bribe boxers to take dives, and promoters not paying purses to boxers on time. The list goes on.

Some promoters are the scum of the earth, others are businessmen. Some are fly-by-night, others have longevity.

When I started covering this sport in 1996, Rodney Berman was the tallest tree by far. His perceived advantage was a contract with pay channel Supersport, while the rest competed for airtime on SABC.

His rivals moaned and groaned and while they were complaining, Branco Milenkovic entered boxing with one South African champion on his books - junior-welterweight Lawrence Ngobeni - and soon became a frequent player on the national broadcaster.

So Berman's detractors moaned and groaned about him too.

It still took Milenkovic several years to get to a point where he could organise world title shots on the scale of Berman, and, once he got there, some of Berman's top fighters switched camps.

Milenkovic had become a genuine rival and that meant boxers had a choice of promoters with good contacts overseas. That's the beauty of competition in a free market.

But the government had other ideas. It announced this weekend that it is amending the regulations so that Boxing South Africa, the regulator, will obtain TV dates from all broadcasters, including Supersport, and then dish them out to promoters.

Promoters are already accusing the government of reneging on what was agreed at the national boxing indaba last month, pointing to the following resolution that was adopted: "Promoters will apply/ tender for the tournament dates directly with the broadcasters and negotiate the final rights fee."

The government, which has a different interpretation of events, explains there are two main reasons for its plan.

One is that it believes promoters are not always honest when declaring their TV incomes, 10% of which must be paid to cash-strapped BSA as a sanctioning fee.

The other is to even the playing field between promoters.

BSA will act fairly, insists the government.

The problem is, I have heard horror stories about BSA too - overseeing tournaments in which boxers are paid late; losing more than R130000 in cash; deducting tax from boxers' purses but not paying SARS; and appointing a CEO with a criminal record.

The list goes on.

When it comes to development, there are more needy beneficiaries than promoters - like trainers, managers and boxers (although development for boxers should really happen at amateur level).

Earlier this month, boxer Motswaki Moselesele suffered a massive welt in a fight against Doctor Ntsele, largely because his own corner didn't possess a basic instrument called an enswell to reduce the swelling.

Every boxer dreams of becoming a world champion, and whether you like it or not, he or she needs a good promoter.

I've given Berman and Milenkovic grief at times over the years, deservedly I believe, and no doubt I will again in the future.

But I struggle to comprehend how cutting them off at the knees will help South Africa's boxers.



Boxing hit below the belt - Sport LIVE

American great Shane Mosley says he doesn't intend to return to Australia to fight Anthony Mundine and has labelled the country's boxing scene "behind the times" and "almost like the mafia days".

Mosley flew back to the US on Tuesday morning, walking out on Wednesday's scheduled fight with Mundine in Sydney, claiming a breach of contract by promoter Vlad Warton in failing to pay the remainder of his $1 million purse in advance.

The former three-time world champion said Warton was contractually obliged to pay a $700,000 upfront fee 10 days before he entered the ring.

"I waited and waited and waited and tried to let them get it, but they never got it," Mosley told website fighthype-com.

"Even up until the weigh-in, he still didn't have the money."

Mundine indicated he may fly to the US with his manager Khoder Nasser in a bid to resurrect the fight.

Asked whether he was still open to fighting Mundine, Mosley said he'd rather the Australian go to America to fight him.

"I'm not thinking about going back out to Australia and messing with the time zone; I don't have time for that," said Mosley.

"I would rather he come out here and fight on my terms and on my turf because over there, it seems like they're still behind the times with their boxing.

"It's almost like the mafia days.

"I'm hearing that people watch the judges; they're sitting behind them looking at them while they mark their scores.

"... Their commission is not really strong like ours, so it's like anything goes. That's what I kept hearing."



Mosley takes a swipe at Australian boxing

A Ukrainian boxer known as "Dr. Ironfist" announced Thursday he plans to run for the country's presidency in 2015, the state-run Ukrinform News Agency reported.

"I want to say that I cannot be intimidated or stopped," Vitali Klitschko, 42, said from the Ukrainian parliament rostrum in the capital city of Kiev. "In order to put an end to various attempts to get rid of me as a possible candidate, I want to say that I'm running for president."

He added: "I have a residence permit in Germany, but this doesn't violate the Ukrainian legislation, and I've always been a citizen of Ukraine."

In addition to having amassed a professional record of 47 wins (41 by knockout) and two losses, the 6-foot, 7½-inch heavyweight is the leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform party.

According to Klitschko's website, he won the World Boxing Organization's world heavyweight title in 1999 by knocking out Herbie Hide in round 2, and -- following in the steps of Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis -- has won a heavyweight belt three times.

He has run twice for mayor of Kiev, holds a master's degree in social development, a doctorate in sport science, is married and has three children.




Ukrainian boxer Vitali Klitschko to run for president - CNN-com

Thanks to the NFL class action suit and the swirl of publicity surrounding head injuries, there have been a number of rule changes aimed at removing some of the risks that come with football. But if you think the gridiron arts can shake up the grey matter, try the prize ring.

On Tuesday, 26-year-old junior featherweight Francisco “Frankie” Leal, died from a brain injury suffered in a knockout loss to Raul Hirales in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Hirales, who was dominating the fight, had Leal down in the sixth round. In the eighth, Hirales landed a crushing right. Leal was up before the count of 10 but then collapsed and soon thereafter fell into a coma. It could be argued that Leal should not have been allowed in the ring in the first place, given the fact that he had to be taken out on a stretcher after his frightening knockout loss to Evgeny Gradovich in March 2012.

Unlike the NFL, boxing people do not need the lab coats to tell them about the connection between blows to the head and early onset dementia. And yet, tweaking the rules of the ring is not going to spare boxers from the “pocket full of mumbles” fate of Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Floyd Patterson and countless other ring warriors.

Greater safety in boxing requires a shift in sensibilities of the sort recently hinted at by pound-for-pound king, Floyd Mayweather Jr. Following his win over Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Mayweather confessed,

“I truly believe I could have banged with Canelo and eventually knocked him out in probably the eighth round, but I could have taken a lot of punishment also, which could have messed my career up to where I wouldn’t have been able to fight four more fights…It hurts my feelings to look at [Muhammad] Ali’s situation. He fought for the people, to please them. You’ve got to fight to please yourself first. Self-preservation.”

Traditionally, people who make their living giving and taking punches have not paid much heed to the law of self-preservation. Mayweather’s admission that he put worries about his health above going for the knockout and pleasing the crowd is not one that many boxers would be willing to make. The unstated rule in the world of the ring has always been “create excitement and never surrender, no matter how impossible the odds.”

A fighter who loses every round, has his brain scrambled but keeps punching, can count on slaps on the back and, at least for that night, adoring fans assuring him that he possesses a certain part of the male anatomy.

“It was not worth taking more punishment because the damage could be permanent…It just wasn’t my night. I have a lot of heart. I’m not a quitter.”

But if boxing is to become less perilous, the ethic has to change. Trainers know their fighters better than the referees. When their man or woman is taking a beating and there is no hope of victory, the trainer needs to protect their fighter from his or her own courage and halt the contest.

More than that, boxers need to take Mayweather’s lead and take responsibility for their health. If their corner does not have the lights to see what is in the offing, then the boxer has to have the mettle to say “enough.” This would entail a sea change in the gladiatorial mind-set, but there were hints of just this in Saturday’s title tilt between Mike Alvarado and Ruslan Provodnikov.

The first few rounds of the matchup were competitive, with Alvardo boxing the brawler from Siberia. However, as the fight progressed it became evident that Alvarado could not keep his relentless and powerful opponent at bay. With a hammer-like left hook and crushing body shots, Provodnikov was beating his gutsy foe down, body part by body part.

Alvarado’s mother was ringside, dabbing her eyes, and in a state of high anxiety for her boy’s health. With his right eye closed, Alvarado was looking like a gargoyle and there was nothing left in his offensive tank. After round six, referee Tony Weeks started coming over between rounds to see whether or not the fighter know as “Mile High” could continue. Finally, just before the tenth stanza, a crestfallen Alvarado whispered that he was done.

After the brawl and almost apologetic, Alvarado explained, “It was not worth taking more punishment because the damage could be permanent…It just wasn’t my night. I have a lot of heart. I’m not a quitter.” Bravo Mike…Bravo. If only Frankie Leal could have done the same.




Boxers, Be Brave and Quit Before Your Brain Turns to Mush - The Daily Beast

Winning has never been a problem for Bernard Hopkins. Entertaining while doing it hasn't come quite as easy. Neither was a problem on Saturday night.

The 48-year-old from Philadelphia rolled to a unanimous decision over Germany’s Karo Murat to defend his IBF light heavyweight title at Boardwalk Hall. Six months after surpassing his own record as the oldest fighter in history to win a major world championship, Hopkins defended it convincingly before 6,324 fans at Boardwalk Hall, many of whom made the 62-mile trip up the Atlantic City Expressway from his hometown. Two of the judges at ringside scored it 119-108, while the third had it 117-110.

Fourteen months from his 50th birthday, Hopkins (54-6-2, 32 KOs) continues to humble younger, stronger opponents who are no match for his skill, experience and intelligence. Saturday marked his sixth consecutive fight against an opponent born in the 1980s – and yet another performance that embodied the ring generalship for which he’s become famous.

Murat (25-2-1, 15 KOs), installed as a 5-to-1 underdog against a man old enough to be his father, was not considered a serious threat. He hadn’t fought in nearly a year and a half and Hopkins only accepted the first because he was the mandatory contender. (Incredibly, Hopkins entered with more world championship fights under his belt than Murat had pro fights.) But he fought shrewdly in the opening rounds, backing Hopkins up and making him work the full three minutes of each round.

Then Hopkins moved him backward with a left-hand counter in the fourth, started to find range with the jab and put his punches together. Murat, an Armenian from Iraq who lives in Berlin, found himself moving backwards for the first time. The fight was on.

Hopkins has always drawn from the dark arts - the occasional rule-pushing intended to unsettle and intimidate an opponent - but he emptied out the bag of tricks for this fight. He thudded Murat with a rabbit punch when his back was turned in the second and kissed him on the back of the head coming out of a clinch in the fifth. The gamesmanship reached a flashpoint when a frustrated Murat landed a punch after the bell - and Hopkins fired back.

By the sixth, it had descended into a dirty fight - Murat had the first of two point deductions for hitting off the break - but Hopkins appeared fresh while Murat looked exhausted. In the seventh, Hopkins landed a crisp two-punch combination to the head, connected to the body, then opened up with a flurry that backed Murat across the ring and left him stunned and hurt on the ropes. The crowd were on their feet.

As he bludgeoned Murat into exhaustion during the eighth - having opened a cut over the corner of his opponent's left eye - Hopkins deliberately backed into the challenger’s corner and began talking to Murat’s corner men while parrying and countering Murat’s punches. When the bell rang, Hopkins didn’t sit down between rounds.

“You’re only wrong when you get caught,” Hopkins said of the gamesmanship.

By the end Hopkins was standing in the pocket, trading punches and getting the better of the exchanges. He clearly didn’t fear Murat’s power - and the result was his most active and aggressive performance in recent memory.

“The plan was to let the dog follow the bone into the dark alley,” Hopkins said afterward. “I wanted the knockout so you have to take risks. I'm an entertainer and this is what the people wanted to see.”

Hopkins’ entry into boxing was improbable enough: more than than 30 arrests before age 17, the 56 months at Graterford State Prison for armed robbery, winning the middleweight championship within seven years of his release.

Yet his exit threatens to be even more preposterous. He spoke at the post-fight press conference of fighting past his 50th birthday, unifying the light heavyweight championship and even going down to middleweight - the weight class he ruled from 1995 to 2005 while making a division-record 20 title defenses - to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr.

“You give me until May of next year to make 160, that fight is on,” he said. “I don’t think too many reporters would count me out.”

Even at 48, time seems to be on Hopkins' side.

“Fourteen months from being 50, not a bruise on my face, that’s ahead of the game,” Hopkins said. “If you duck more than you take, you can count your own money later on.”



Bernard Hopkins becomes oldest fighter to retain world boxing title | Sport | theguardian-com

IT may not have been that elusive gold, but boxer Jason Quigley saw the silver lining after his incredible performance at the Amateur Boxing Championships in Kazakhstan.

Quigley and Joe Ward were given a heroes' welcome by family and friends at Dublin Airport as they returned home with the spoils of their respective victories at the AIBA World dangling round their necks.

Jason Quigley's silver medal came after an unbeaten streak in which the middleweight, from Ballybofey, Co Donegal, racked up 32 straight victories.

He then ultimately lost the gold medal to Kazakhstan fighter Zhanibek Alimkhanuly on Saturday.

And while the 22-year-old has spoken of his disappointment in not coming home with gold, he said he was delighted to have made history as the first Irish boxer to win a silver medal at the European championships.

"It was hard to take at the time, getting a silver medal," he said as his mother, Muriel, (40), and sisters, Molly (5) and Jade (14), smothered him in hugs and kisses at the arrivals hall at Terminal One yesterday.

"But whenever you come back to your family and supporters like this, it makes it all worthwhile," he said of supporters from his home club Finn Valley, who welcome him home along with his father, Conor, his coach.

Meanwhile, lightweight boxer Joe Ward said he was also happy to be sporting a bronze medal for Ireland after he was defeated by Cuban world champion Julio Peraza in the semi-finals on Friday.

PHENOMENAL

The lightweight from Moate, Co Westmeath, said the significance of winning a medal for Ireland didn't really hit him until he saw all of the wellwishers greet him at the airport yesterday.

"This is phenomenal and it's a great achievement for myself, 19 years old, to come back with a bronze medal from the world championships. I'm really happy with myself," he told the Irish Independent.



Quigley sees silver lining after boxing win - Independent.ie

On Saturday night, Showtime let Bernard Hopkins introduce himself by means of a promotional video. “I’ve shown for twenty-plus years, with a legacy that will be talked about way after I’m gone, that I am different,” he said. Then the broadcast moved to Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, where Hopkins walked through the crowd to the boxing ring. To show how different he is, he adopted a new nickname for Saturday’s fight: The Alien. He used to call himself The Executioner, and often came to fights wearing a menacing balaclava. But this time, he emerged wearing a lime-green alien mask; his trainer, Naazim Richardson, wore a lime-green skullcap.

There are many ways in which Hopkins is different from other boxers, but the main one is age: he is forty-eight years old, and in March the International Boxing Federation awarded him the light-heavyweight champion of the world. That makes him, in the words of Jimmy Lennon, Jr., the in-ring announcer, “the oldest boxer ever to hold a world title.” Boxing fans have learned to be wary of these world titles, because there is no shortage of title-awarding organizations, each with its own dubious champion. (By general consensus, the true champion at light heavyweight, which has a weight limit of a hundred and seventy-five pounds, is a powerful Canadian named Adonis Stevenson.) But Hopkins is still a marvel: a great fighter who is nearly fifty years old.

Hopkins isn’t always entertaining—his tricky, devious style, meant to frustrate opponents, can work equally well on fans. But he entertained on Saturday night. He faced Karo Murat, an obscure but capable boxer based in Germany (he was born in Iraq), and their match was messy and unpredictable: Hopkins mocked Murat, kissed him twice, goaded him into throwing an illegal punch that earned a one-point penalty, strolled away mid-fight to taunt his trainer. Hopkins also fought, delivering and receiving more and harder punches than most viewers expected. After the ninth round, a replay showed Murat spinning Hopkins’s head counter-clockwise with a precise left hook. Al Bernstein, one of Showtime’s commentators, said, “I’ll tell ya, if you’re forty-eight and you take those kinds of punches from anybody, it’s special.” Understandably, the announcers’ conversation kept circling back to Hopkins’s age. Between rounds four and five, they reminisced about 1988, when “The Cosby Show” was a hit and Regan was President: that was the year Hopkins became a professional boxer.

This was, as Bernstein said, “a fun fight,” and, in boxing, “fun” generally means “violent.” By the end, Murat had cuts over both eyes, and Hopkins spent the twelfth and final round engaged in a fierce brawl, trying for a knockout. Hopkins didn’t succeed, but he won easily on the judges’ scorecards, and in a post-fight interview he explained his strategy. “Richard Schaefer said we’ve got to be crowd-pleasing,” Hopkins said. Schaefer, the C.E.O. of Golden Boy, which promotes Hopkins’s fights, was standing on his right, smiling proudly. “The crowd want to see skills, but they also want to see a little bit of blood, so I got a little bit of blood to give ’em,” Hopkins said, gesturing toward his reddish mouth. “I’m an entertainer, and this is what people want to see.”

Of course, people don’t always want to see their favorite boxers fight bravely into their middle-aged years and beyond. James Toney is a legendary boxer who is three years younger than Hopkins and similarly disinclined to retire; he is scheduled to fight next month in Britain. Toney is much diminished now from his nineteen-nineties prime, or even from his 2003 revival; in interviews, his speech can sound blurred and halting. After the fight was announced, Dan Rafael, from espn.com, was one of many observers who objected, declaring that Toney “shouldn’t be fighting anymore.” Shane Mosley, another stubborn veteran, retired after a gruelling loss last year, then un-retired earlier this year; he is only forty-two, but he seems to get a little older with every punch he takes. Mosley’s most recent match, at least, ended happily. It seems he flew to Australia for a fight, and then, when he didn’t receive his full million-dollar fee, he flew home to California, keeping his deposit of three hundred thousand dollars.

A week before the Hopkins fight, a boxer named Francisco Leal, known as Frankie, was beaten to death in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Leal had been brutally knocked out eighteen months ago, in San Antonio. After a series of easier fights, he was knocked out again on October 19th; he died three days later, reportedly from a brain injury. Some said Leal shouldn’t have been fighting at all after the earlier knockout—but, then, most boxers can’t afford to heed every warning they get. Leal wasn’t a star, he wasn’t any sort of champion, and he certainly wasn’t an old man. Better known now than he ever was during his career, he died three days before his twenty-seventh birthday.

When fans try to shame veterans like Toney and Mosley into retirement, they often speak the language of concern: they don’t want to see a boxer get injured or worse; they don’t want to hear people saying, after a catastrophic fight, that the tragedy was predictable. But boxing is predictably tragic; if we truly didn’t want to see fighters get injured, we wouldn’t watch them fight. When fans cheer Hopkins, hitting and getting hit in the twelfth round, even when he probably knows he has already won, they say they admire his bravery. Is there something less honorable about the bravery of Toney and Mosley—or, for that matter, Leal? Some fans play doctor, scrutinizing interviews for signs of altered speech, and yet there’s something perverse about urging a man to fight until he’s damaged, then urging him to stop. Other fans merely observe—accurately—that there’s no way to force a boxer to retire. There will always be a state or a country willing to let a famous fighter fight, and an audience, however small, willing to

There is a new film starring two of Hollywood's most famous fighters called Grudge Match coming out this year and in this latest celluloid fistic caper Robert De Niro, aka Jake La Motta, fights Sylvester Stallone, aka Rocky Balboa, for revenge 30 years after their last fight.

Both have Oscars, both have deep scars from their sacrifices inside the boxing ring in pursuit of acting glory and both, it would appear, have a grudge to settle; it all sounds perfectly and brilliantly Hollywood and the trailer has its moments.

In 1980's Raging Bull De Niro portrayed the brilliant and often psychotic world champion Jake La Motta so perfectly that the real Jake, a man whose company you never forget, became a little concerned when De Niro allegedly took his legendary research a bit far with one of the fighter's six wives.

Stallone has built a career on playing the Philadelphia fighting legend Rocky, a man he first created from his days as a bum loser and then took through to his days as a brain-damaged millionaire, struggling with the death of his baby turtles and Mickey his cornerman. What else could these two do but fight?

In theory the return to the ring of Sly could get him into trouble with the Boxing Hall of Fame, which convenes each summer in Canastota, New York, to induct the living and the dead from boxing's finest nights in a surprisingly joyless few days of solemn recognition. However, to prove that the men behind the Hall have a sense of humour they included Sylvester Stallone a couple of years ago, which is funny until you look at the men they reject every 12 months. Stallone, or his alter-ego Rocky Balboa, is meant to stay retired and not end his exile to fight 70-year-old De Niro.

Away from Hollywood an equally bizarre fight is moving closer and closer to becoming reality and I can't help thinking that it has probably done the rounds a bit like the original script for Grudge Match. In one corner is boxing's youthful, unbeaten and insanely rich Floyd Mayweather and in the other corner is the old man, felon and self-confessed alien Bernard Hopkins.

Mayweather has not lost in 45 fights and competes with majesty in a weight division two stone below the one that Hopkins, at 48 years of age, is still dominating in style. Hopkins has offered to drop weight to make the fight happen; it's a fight that on paper is only slightly less ridiculous than De Niro v Stallone.

However, Richard Schaefer, the boss at Golden Boy, the company that promotes both Hopkins and Mayweather, has broken his silence and when the Swiss-born, multimillionaire philatelist talks, people listen: "I have a plan. The number 50 is out there; Bernard is approaching 50 and Floyd is getting close to 50 fights without a loss. We all know that Rocky Marciano retired undefeated after 49 fights. Floyd can go to 50 and this is a fight that gets my promotional juices going." Hopkins has promised to lose a stone and Mayweather has not yet ruled out gaining a few pounds.

On Saturday night in Atlantic City Hopkins, who turns 49 in January, retained his IBF light-heavyweight title in a slugfest against Karo Murat, who was 18 years younger. It was world title fight No 32 for Hopkins and he entered the ring wearing a full-face green alien mask; he left with a big smile knowing that he was closer to Mayweather and a fight that Hollywood's boxing writers would love to have invented.



Steve Bunce on Boxing: Bernard Hopkins' latest move out-Hollywoods Rocky v La Motta - Others - More Sports - The Independent

The British Boxing Board of Control thinks they are "mad", and the Amateur Boxing Association of England "wouldn't recommend it", but Mike Keen and Richard Sharp have never felt so alive.

Keen is a trader for an Australian bank, while Sharp works in a German bank's strategy team. Long hours, good money: they are suited-and-booted workers in London's financial services factory.

Not tonight, though.

Tonight, Mike "The Machine" Keen and Richard "Razor" Sharp are stars in a white-collar boxing show at Bethnal Green's York Hall, hallowed ground in the fight game.

"For the last week I've become very aware of my body - I've felt every little ache and strain," says Keen.

"And I can tell you everything about the walk to the venue. I noticed absolutely everything."

Sharp adds: "Without meaning to be cliched about it, I see the same things on the train in every morning, but it felt different today."

This heightening of the senses is something Jamie Toff has witnessed hundreds of times before, as well as experiencing it himself.

A government bonds trader, Toff was looking for a way to relieve the stress of his day job and keep fit. He thought kick-boxing might do it until he saw a group of City workers training to be boxers at a gym in east London.

"I had never heard of white-collar boxing," says Toff. "But there was a spirit of togetherness. There were blokes from banks, trading houses, insurance companies…there was even a composer.

"At first I just wanted to see if I could do it, to see if I could get in the ring once.

"I ended up having 18 bouts, including one at [West Ham's] Upton Park. There aren't many sports that can give normal blokes an experience like that."

Toff does not box competitively anymore. He is too busy training would-be warriors and promoting his own nights. The "Brawl in the Hall" is one of his, and he has helped Keen and Sharp prepare for their baptism of blows.

Sharp, a former Marine, fights Nathan "Dynamic" Roberts in the fourth of the evening's eight bouts, while Keen must battle his butterflies until the seventh contest. His opponent is Daryl "Mid-Life Crisis" Thorpe, who coincidentally was two years below him at school.

Some might argue that Thorpe's nickname could be applied to any of the 16 fighters on the card. A mid-life crisis used to mean buying a pair of trousers that are too fashionable for the wearer, or doing "something different" with your hair. Wealthier 30-somethings might have bought a motorbike, and the truly reckless would flirt with the girl in accounts.

But somewhere along the line it became mandatory for middle-aged men (and some women) to assert their undiminished vigour by taking on an extreme challenge: run a marathon, climb Kilimanjaro, swim the Channel, that kind of thing.

There has clearly been an element of inflation at play here - a concept that City workers should be comfortable with - because fighting a stranger in front of 400 spectators is what you do when a triathlon simply won't cut it.

The 1999 film "Fight Club" is the obvious reference point, but the white-collar scene is not secret, does not look like mass therapy and nobody has quit their job. It is very popular, though.

Speak to anybody involved in British boxing and they will tell you white-collar boxing is growing fast. They just do not know how fast.

There is a simple reason why the extent of its popularity is unknown: it is unlicensed and the licensed side of the sport does not want to dignify its rise by keeping tabs on it, while the unlicensed side of the sport is too busy making money to worry about participation surveys.

Unlicensed does not mean illegal - all of these promotions are above board, and many are run in aid of charity. But that doesn't placate the boxing authorities.

"We think it's mad," is Robert Smith's forthright view of the grassroots phenomenon.

Smith is the general secretary of the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC), the UK's governing body for professional boxing.

"Boxing is fun and boxers are some of the fittest athletes anywhere. But you cannot get away from the fact that it can be dangerous," he continues.

"I haven't been to any white-collar nights myself, but I have seen footage of James Cracknell getting knocked out."

That is a reference to the Olympic rowing champion's emphatic defeat by New Zealand cricketer Kerry Walmsley in an unlicensed contest in 2007. Walmsley was almost two stones heavier than Cracknell, and enjoyed a considerable reach advantage.

The charity involved that night was Sparks, and the sight of one of its most famous patrons sparked out on the canvas prompted it to withdraw from all future boxing fundraisers.

"You can't take part in a contest after just a few months of training. We don't want anything to do with it," is Smith's final word on the matter.

But white-collar boxers have no intention of going professional. They can earn a lot more trading pork bellies and cornering the market for frozen orange juice. They keep in shape and they take their training seriously, but basically they just want to lace on some gloves and hit somebody for fun. Is that so wrong?

"We don't recommend it," says Keith Walters, the chairman of the Amateur Boxing Association of England (ABAE).

"It's a physical sport: you've got to be looked after. To be honest, it's not a sport I'd recommend to everybody.

"[White-collar boxing] is obviously a money-making thing."

Walters points out that the ABAE has listened to the market by raising the upper age-limit for amateur boxers from 34 to 40 with its new Masters division. That would still be too low, though, for Keen and at least one other fighter on the "Brawl in the Hall" card.

"With the pros and us, we've got a good structure. So this unlicensed fighting worries me a bit," adds Walters.

It almost goes without saying that the BBBC and the ABAE ban any of their coaches, fighters or officials fro

Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin put a little more shine on his rising star in boxing and retained his WBA middleweight title with a fan friendly eighth round TKO victory over Curtis Stevens Saturday, thrilling a packed Madison Square Garden in New York.

The predicted early exits in both the main event and the undercard bout didn’t happen, providing the kind of action that does nothing but good for the sport of boxing.

Stevens (25-4, 18 KOs) showed speed and managed to hit Golovkin (28-0, 25 KOs) several times hard enough to make “Triple G” cautious about coming in too close. Stevens showed resolve and he can take tremendous punishment, seemingly through sheer will. But the outcome was not in doubt from 2:30 into the second round, when Golovkin dropped Stevens with a powerful left hook. Stevens got up and survived the round. He made it through six more as Golovkin delivered relentless hooks and body shots.

After the final minute of the eighth round in which Golovkin unleashed a fusillade of punches, 56 power shots total in the round, Stevens’ trainer Andre Rossier had seen enough. All referee Harvey Dock had to say was “Is that it?” “Yeah, that’s it,” said Rossier. It was a good stoppage. Stevens’ eyes and face were swollen, and there was no point in him taking any more punishment.

The stats tells the story: Golovkin landed triple the punches Stevens did; 293 of 794 for Golovkin, 97 of 303 punches for Stevens. Golovkin delivered 58 body shots versus 20 for Stevens; 235 punches to the head by Golovkin versus 77 for Stevens.

“I have nothing to be ashamed of,” said Stevens. “I’m better than anybody gave my credit for. I’ve shown more in a loss than most people show in a win. This is not the end for me. I will learn from my mistakes and I’ll be back.” He’s right, he doesn’t. Fans will welcome seeing this tough competitor back into the ring anytime.

Golovkin relished his victory, telling HBO’s Max Kellerman Stevens never really hurt him. “I know I am better. My power better, my speed better. People know who is who … I am the champion, I am open to anybody.” Name one? “Sergio Martinez, (Julio) Caesar Chavez, I am here.”

While fans started salivating at the thought of a Golovkin vs. Martinez fight, hold your horses. The World Boxing Association has ruled that Golovkin must face interim-champion Martin Murray (25-1-1, 11 KOs) assuming a Golovkin win Saturday and a win for Murray next month against Garth Wood (12-3-1, 8 KOs) in Sydney, Australia on December 11. Murray’s sole loss was a decision against Sergio Martinez earlier this year.

Golovkin’s promoters said after the win his next bout would be on February 1, 2014 in Monte Carlo. Assuming it is a fight against Murray, it’s an outstanding potential matchup to look forward to. Many observers believed Murray won the fight with Martinez, although the judges disagreed.

Then perhaps it’s a bout with Miguel Cotto, and from there? Golovkin’s patience may pay off, exactly as planned.

On the undercard fight, “Irish” Mike Perez (20-0-0, 12 KOs) remained undefeated with a unanimous decision over Magomed Abdusalamov of Russia (18-1-0, 18 KOs). It was the most action packed heavyweight fight in recent memory. Abdusalamov took a lot of punishment from Perez but kept coming at him to the very end. He indicated to his corner that he thought his nose was broken early in the fight; the left side of his face became terribly swollen. But Mago toughed it out. Judges Julie Lederman and Don Trella had it 97-92; Don Trella scored it 95-94, all for Mike Perez.

Win or lose, when you want to see both boxers in both of the featured bouts again, it’s a good night for the fighters, the fans, and the future of the Sweet Science.

Read more: Boxing news: Golovkin works over Stevens for TKO win; Perez gets decision | Washington Times Communities
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Heavyweight boxer Magomed Abdusalamov competed on the HBO Boxing card last night, facing Mike Perez in the prelude to Gennady Golovkin vs. Curtis Stevens. Addusalamov dropped a hard fought 10 round decision to Perez, taking a lot of damage along the way. Now, it appears that damage was more severe then we realized.

BoxingScene-com reports that Abdusalamov was put in a medically induced coma this morning due to a blood clot on the brain. From their first report:

Earlier today, BoxingScene-com reported that during the fight Magomed broke his left hand, broke his nose and he was taken to a local hospital where a small blood clot was discovered on the brain.

Late last night, Magomed's manager, Boris Grinberg, told BoxingScene the fighter was doing fine after doctors tended to his injuires. But a few hours later the boxer began to complain of bad headaches and was feeling ill. Doctors at Roosevelt Hospital placed him in a medically induced coma to reduce the possibility of any serious complications stemming from the blood clot.

BoxingScene has since updated the story, indicating that Adbusalamov is now in stable condition in ICU, though is still in the coma.

After the opening round of the fight, Abdusalamov was questioning the extent of his injuries in the corner. As the fight progressed, the fighter's face continued to swell, and he again questioned how badly he was injured. His corner opted to keep him in the fight for the full 10 rounds despite the, at the time, unknown injury.

With the recent death of boxer Francisco Leal, and now this, everyone involved in boxing is given a stark reminder of the very real dangers involved in this sport.

On behalf of everyone at Bloody Elbow, we extend our best wishes for a full recovery to Magomed Abdusalamov.



Boxer Magomed Abdusalamov in coma after last night's fight on HBO - Bloody Elbow