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Later tonight at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida, Andre Berto (25-0, 19KOs) will defend the WBC welterweight title against former champion Carlos Quintana (27-2, 21KOs). Quintana, who broke the unbeaten streaks of Paul Williams and Joel Julio, could be the most dangerous opponent in Berto's career. An impressive win over Quintana can lead to much bigger fights.
The boxing community in San Diego, California, is still trying to recover from Wednesday's rampage by boxing trainer Mark Diaz, who at one time trained Danny Perez. Shortly after 9pm on Wednesday, Diaz allegedly walked into Pacific Coast Boxing on North Santa Fe Avenue and opened fire with handgun. He killed trainer Hector Gil Sr., 52, and shot trainer Peter Moreno, 56, in the shoulder and 21-year-old super featherweight boxer Ricardo Gutierrez, who was scheduled to have his second pro fight at the end of this month, in the leg. Both Moreno and Gutierrez lived.
Former champion Mikkel Kessler has gone back to his boxing roots. The favorite to win the Super Six super middleweight tournament was sidelined last November when Andre Ward dominated him on course to a techincal decision in Oakland. After suffering the second loss of his career, Kessler changed everything around in his training camp. He gets a shot at redemption before thousands of his Danish followers when he faces WBC champion Carl Froch on April 24 in Denmark.
WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik is tired of the critics going after him. He thinks he did more than some of the other middleweight champions in his era, like Arthur Abraham, who moved up to super middleweight last year and current WBA champion Felix Sturm. Pavlik says the critics go after him all the time and they rarely went after some of the other middleweight champions.
According to reports in Mexico, former champion Erik Morales has set a tentative date for his next fight. Morales returned to ring as a welterweight on March 27 and won a decision over Jose Alfaro. It was Morales' first fight in over two and a half years. Morales is planning to fight again on July 24 in Mexico. He doesn't know who the July opponent will be but he wants to fight at least three to four times in 2010. Training camp will begin in early May.
WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch is not worried about the officials in Denmark. He travels over to fight Mikkel Kessler on April 24 in the second stage of the Super Six tournament. Froch is confident the WBC appointed officials will do the right thing.
WBA junior welterweight champion Amir Khan is training tough with Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, California. Khan defends the title against former champion Paulie Malignaggi on May 15 at Madison Square Garden in New York. If he gets past Malignaggi, Khan is looking for some bigger names at the weight, like Victor Ortiz and Marcos Maidana.
The weights are in for Saturday's doubleheader at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida. WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (25-0, 19 KOs) was ripped and weighed 146.5-pounds. Former champion and challenger Carlos Quintana (27-2, 21 KOs) easily made the weight and also came on the scale at 146.5.
At the Alexandra Palace in London, heavyweight Audley Harrison (27-4, 20KO) knocked out Michael Sprott (32-15, 17KO) in the twelfth round of a dramatic fight to win the European heavyweight title. Harrison, 38 gets revenge over Sprott, who knocked him out back in 2007.
According to a report in bild, Sauerland Event, promoters for Arthur Abraham, have officially protested the fighter's disqualification loss to Andre Dirrell. The fight took place on March 27 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan. Sauerland filed a protest with the WBC. The disqualified call was issued in the eleventh round when Dirrell slipped to the mat and Abraham hit him while still down.