HardSciFi

Mayweather vs bradley = same result mayweather UD Mayweather vs garcia = mayweather UD (would be same like canelo fight) Mayweather vs hopkins = mayweather UD Mayweather vs cotto = mayweather UD (rematch) Mayweather vs Khan = can't predict result (Because of khan's chin) Changed the bolded around, but otherwise agreed. Khan is probably the biggest name they can find that Mayweather has a reasonable chance of knocking out. And I'd be totally fine with this fight happening if Khan had fought and beaten Alexander. Instead, it's a farce. It's reaching too far, and indicative of how difficult it is to find a decent opponent at 140-154 for Mayweather that isn't under Top Rank (he's beaten all the GB ones). Even the better 160lb fights are mostly off limits (Martinez is with TR, same with Barker... Quillin is probably a little too big and wouldn't be able to get below 160lb). There is of course GGG. But even if you want to fight him, if you're Floyd, you wait until he's beaten a few more good fighters so that his name (and value) grows (I doubt Floyd wants to fight a 160lb beast though). I hate to come back to it, but if there was ever a time where the Manny fight was necessary, it would be after Manny beating Rios handily. If that happens... it's by far the best matchup out there for Floyd, both for money and opponent quality. Previously, there were tough opponents. Cotto was a tough fighter in everyone's mind until Floyd beat him (then Manny), now everyone talks as if Cotto was 40 years old when Floyd fought him or they act like the fight was close. Canelo should show us that Floyd was just that good over his next few fights, as he looked brilliant against Trout (a very good fighter who beat Cotto and may beat Lara next).

This would be a really cool fight at 154. I think we can discount Golovkin's jab. It's too slow to deal with Floyd's masterful skillset. And Floyd would obviously have to run around and dodge. That said, if you look at all the guys that have fought Floyd, only a few have pressured him. Cotto did, but Cotto wasn't nearly as strong as Golovkin, nor did he go to the body nearly as much, nor could he take the punches that Golovkin has shown he can take. Castillo was aggressive and went to the body and almost won. That's really the only way someone beats him. You need to get inside, take punches well, and go to the body with big shots. That should be able to win rounds and put you in place for a decision win (KO is always a possibility, but doubtful at 140-154 vs Floyd). Golovkin is capable of doing all that. That doesn't mean I think Golovkin is >50% to win, but he sure as hell seems to have a solid double digit chance, something few others have at 140-154. Also, gosh, do some people around here just go around posting Floyd hate every day? I guess that's the result of a very good fighter playing the villain role for years. He's beaten better fighters than Manny or Cotto, and while it's ridiculous the Manny fight never got made, the advantage of being the top fighter is that you can say "I deserve my market value" and not have to sink down to take 50-50 against a fighter who is not worth as much in terms of PPV money. People used to say Floyd was ducking Cotto, but as soon as the money was right, he jumped on it, beat him clearly in 8 rounds, and probably took 1-2 others if we're being fair, and then the crowd split between "Cotto was over the hill (even though by all evidence he was still prime, and far younger than Floyd)" and "Cotto almost beat him." You don't have to like the best fighter in the game, but you should at least respect that he's the best and he's beaten the best fighters out of anyone at 140-154. Hatton's first loss, Corrales first loss, cakewalk against Marquez (who has fought close fights against some of the best fighters over the years, don't even need to count Manny knockout, he was fighting a close fight though losing against Manny prior to that and Floyd walked right over Marquez), cakewalk against Canelo (who handily beat Trout, a top 154 fighter and walked through anyone else he's fought, Lopez, etc.). Not to mention all the top 3-4 contenders in the 140-147 he's fought over the years. All these Guererro type guys "suck" after Floyd beats them (according to haters). Ironic. The only top fighters people should be legitimately hating on as being so overrated it's not even funny are guys like Chavez Jr.

I don't like the logic of some of your post. - Canelo's team and GBP want him to fight big fights. 1) it redeems him from the Floyd fight, puts it past him sooner 2) he's a huge star right now and you don't groom a star by putting him in bs fights. It's one thing to take on weak fights coming up, but it's not a good strategy to do so when you're the best at your weight. - Cotto definitely should take this Canelo fight. They're offering him over 10 million to take it, it would likely be Cotto's largest payday ever. He made around 12 mil each against Floyd and Manny, so he'd make around that to fight Canelo, which is nowhere near what a Martinez fight would bring. - Quillin would be a fight many would want to see in the boxing community. But it wouldn't be as big of a fight as Martinez, nor even come close to Canelo (bc Quillin isn't as popular as either, doesn't draw as much money). Cotto probably fights Canelo in March for tons of money, then his next fight depends on the result of that one. Cotto is very popular, whether you like him or not, and draws tons of money. Whether he wins or loses, it's similar to Oscar De La Hoya, he'll be able to fight many big names for a lot of money. But to say he has no options when GB has offered him the Canelo fight for around as much as he's ever been paid is crazy. His career has never looked more profitable than today.

Great writeup and ratings update.

Definitely a bad break. I disagree with looking forward to an informal tourney though. With Geale, Martinez and especially GGG around, it would spoil some potentially bigger matches. GGG Murray Barker Geale II Those two in particular I think would be great.

Most of the time things aren't rigged, it's just incompetence. Look at what judges get paid, there's a reason why the analysts on tv get paid more (they have to speak and obviously be knowledgeable about the fights, so often they are scoring the fights better than the judges). I don't think Showtime wants Rosado to lose all the time. If he wins he's a really good story that they can get behind and promote for future fights. As far as promoters and networks wanting certain fighters to win, their influence really comes on where the fight takes place (sometimes when it takes place and at what weight can also influence in one fighter's direction too). That cut was nasty, it was early in the round, even if you let it go on you'd be stopping it in another 30-45 seconds. I agree the judging on that one was terrible, but it still seemed that Quillin was up a little bit. I'd of loved to see what happened, had Quillin not opened up that cut on his head, but he did and that is boxing.

I generally feel Arum is the biggest obstacle to the Floyd Manny fight ever happening. However, when Schaefer says he'll just offer the same deal as Arum offered for Donaire - Mares... Donaire - Mares never happened, right? So Schaefer didn't feel those terms were OK and he rejected them.... why would he think Arum should accept? If Schaefer had accepted the blueprint for Donaire - Mares, then I think Scaefer's argument would be a great one. But it holds little weight when he himself rejected that blueprint when he was on the other side of it... So all we have here is a funny interview with Schaefer. Sure, some of his other smaller points are valid (Arum can pick up the phone rather than talk to the press), but his main point is hollow to me. Nothing to see here imo.

I guess Martinez doesn't count because he's not going to fight until the summer at the earliest. I also would imagine Kovalov and Stevenson don't count because they will likely fight each other in the spring. GGG might not be a big enough name right now to justify a PPV vs Ward, but I wouldn't be surprised if they could sell PPVs of that fight as early as spring. But I do think Froch-Ward could be a PPV too. Froch has the UK fan base, Ward has the US fan base, Froch is the consensus #2 at 168 as well. Not that I'm super excited as a fan for that (compared to the names I mention above vs Ward), but it's still a very good fight that I'd enjoy seeing. Hopkins isn't possible, he's with Goldenboy. So my realistic PPV list for Ward would be: -Chavez Jr. -GGG -Froch With Martinez and the winner of Kovalov-Stevenson as possibilities for the summer or fall 2014.

For the love of God when is Sam 'King' Soliman going to get his title shot this is ridiculous! He gave Sturm a boxing lesson last time and will do it again. Come on IBF enforce the mandatory for f**** sake! If the guy didn't use steroids he'd of probably fought Barker instead...

I'm interested to see the show. I wonder how much actual fighting we'll see compared to real life storyline and training. I wouldn't mind the training, but I really want to see fighting and I don't care much for storylines unless they do something groundbreaking. Doesn't sound like it will be that big of a tv show based on how many households it hits, but I'm no expert when it comes to tv networks.

Vera deserves a rematch. Surprised Chavez Jr. is going along with it.

How can you have Bradley 4th on your P4P list? Nevermind the other weights, just Manny being 8th vs Bradley 4th seems very questionable to me. Bradley clearly lost to Manny the first time, then he beat two tough opponents by a close margin (Provo and Marquez). Manny was beating Marquez, about to go up by 2 rounds, when he walked into a massive right hand and lost. Credit Marquez for a great punch, but does one punch really make you think that Bradley is better than Manny? Just to erase doubt that he'd never be able to fight at a top level again, Manny went out and dominated Rios in very impressive fashion. People say he's lost power and didn't KO Rios, but he didn't KO Margarito at the height of his success either, and he hit Margarito with many more shots than Rios (and got hit far more by Margarito than Rios). Of course Floyd being the #1 WW in the world is crystal clear, but it seems pretty clear to me that Manny is #2 WW. We should see for sure soon I suppose, that's why they fight these matches... but Bradley seems like he went from being quite underrated to quite overrated by so many.

I agree, I like Diego. I wish Provo or Broner were fighting him instead next. He'd be a good test. Thurman is the goods imo, I think he can beat anyone outside of Floyd at this point (not that he'd be favored, just that he could legitimately beat almost anyone now).

Thurman looks really good to me. He has good footwork for his height, he has really solid power and he can box smart. He could've went in and stood toe to toe with Jesus Karass, but he decided to play it smart, move around, wear him down and then take him out. That's a sign of a really good fighter. We've also seen him slug and walk opponents down, so he's definitely versatile. He's an appealing personality, so 2-3 big wins in a row should get him a Floyd fight. My money would be on the second fight of 2015, that should give Thurman enough time. Wish they'd of gone Broner Khan and Thurman Collazo. Oh well, fn matchmaking.

Broner didn't throw enough vs Paulie, but he didn't get hit by much either. He has a very elite skillset and seems to take training seriously (even if he sounds ridiculous and pulls stupid stunts). It's far too early to put him up there in the P4P lists, but he's a top prospect. There aren't many guys sub 25 that you'd put ahead of him. Canelo for sure, but that might be it (Mikey Garcia is about to be 26).

Froch would likely outbox Pascal for 12 rounds. Froch has the chin to take a few good shots, but Pascal doesn't have the footwork and balance to really give Froch the type of trouble that Groves did. Pascal has good hand speed, but unlike Groves, he's not quick when moving inside. Froch throws a lot of punches too, so I'd just expect him to get the job done with a 116-117 type score UD.

I'm kind of leaning towards Cotto Canelo to be honest. If both Canelo and Martinez want Cotto, Canelo should be able to make the better offer, as he has a substantially larger following ($$) than Martinez. That would be a pretty good fight. As we can see, many legions of people have lost faith (at least on this forum) in Canelo after Floyd whipped him up. But nobody can box with Floyd and Canelo tried. It's not like Cotto fared much better against Floyd, he won 4 rounds tops. Sure, he tried a better strategy, but he came nowhere near succeeding. Now Cotto is older, 2 more losses have built up and he's the type of fighter Canelo can deal with better. Canelo doesn't want to have to go chasing guys or throwing huge volumes of punches to win rounds. He shouldn't have to do either against Cotto. Granted, Cotto could win, but Canelo should be the favorite on fight day. Martinez fight, besides being less profitable for Cotto, is less interesting because he'd have to go to 160. He seems to really want to fight at 154. Martinez may also want to do a Cotto fight in late 2014. I have seen nothing of this mentioned, but having multiple surgeries and over a year off then jumping into a very tough opponent like a Cotto or GGG... it seems like an easy way to lose a title (unless a rematch was guaranteed). I'd expect Martinez to offer Chavez JR. a crack at him in May or June, provided Chavez JR. takes his rematch fight seriously. That's easy money and a very winnable fight for Martinez. I'm not interested in it personally, but Chavez JR. has a huge following and is a better comeback opponent to fight.

I can understand why Golden Boy is so hesitant, Canelo finally steps up & gets exposed! There's a pattern, keep feeding fighters bums over & over, the fighter will eventually become a bum of a fighter despite there following! The rest of your post had some points, but Canelo didn't step up in a way that GB or anyone expected him to win. He was the underdog, and why would GB want Canelo to beat their biggest star and moneymaker?

Chavez JR was lazy and slept in until 4PM and missed his scheduled lunch date with Floyd Haha, A+ post.

LOL,Pac would have been paid the same amount to fight Bradley that he was paid to fight Marquez..How was Marquez the tougher fight??Bradley beat Pac,at the time Marquez had not one a fight against Pac yet..There was no excuse for Pac not to fight Bradley right away tbh.. I love Pac,but tbh it was a bit of a sucker move to say..Oh majority feels I won so that means I don't have to show it in the ring..That's not what this sport is about..It was pretty disappointing by him imo.. But Bradley didn't really beat Manny. Most of Manny's wins over Marquez were closer than the review panel that was called in to review the Manny-Bradley score because it was so poor. I mean, CJ Ross called Canelo Floyd a draw. I think we can use some common sense and discount some of these insane things that judges like CJ Ross have done to this sport in the last few years. Everyone knows Manny beat Bradley, Beltran beat Burns and Matthyse beat Alexander. It's an annoying fact of this sport that we need to sometimes ignore actual results because of inept judges (not when we want to ignore the result, but when the media is 60/60 on a score and a review panel is submitted and finds that the loser was really the clear winner, then it's obvious who really won). That said, I'd imagine it was purely about money. I can't imagine a Bradley rematch would've given Manny more money than a Marquez fight, and that's still likely true. The base pay for Manny might be the same, but fighters like him and Floyd almost always get a % of the PPV buys and the PPV buys for Manny Marquez is always going to be larger than Manny Bradley. Marquez is just an incredibly popular fighter. And Bradley said himself that he decided not to take the Manny rematch recently because he "wasn't ready for this." I assume he meant mentally, he took a beating publicly and was depressed for awhile over the first fight's controversy. So even though Bradley would've made far more money facing Manny a second time, he chose to face Marquez instead. And Marquez rejected a Manny rematch recently because he wanted to try to win a 5th weight class title I believe it was. However, I'm sure he also feels pretty good about winning the last fight with that crazy knockout punch. If Marquez is still fighting in a year or two I'd imagine he will consider going for yet another Manny fight though. Just too much money in it.

Kovalev's performance didn't seem disappointing to me. He got cut by illegal stuff (headbutt, possibly forearm), and his opponent had a good guard that got beat down over time. GGG got hit more by Adama in their fight, and it went a similar distance, and Adama had a worse record (his claim to fame was not being KO'd by Geale, lol), with a few losses. I'd put GGG and Kovalev's performances on par with each other. Impressive defeats vs guys that clearly didn't want to take chance and were more in the fights to last longer than to win rounds. Compare that to rising star Mikey Garcia, already star Floyd Mayweather, already star Canelo Alvarez, already star Manny Pacquao, already best in class Danny Garcia... where were their KOs in their last fights? Hell, Danny lost his by most accounts. Mikey didn't want to get KO'd, Floyd was masterful but didn't get any KO, and Canelo took longer to KO a fighter that gave about the same skilled effort as Adama or Agnew. Expecting 3 round KOs doesn't work well unless the opponent is fat and out of shape (see the types of opponents the heavyweight guys often fight), or the fighter engages. Neither happened in this fight. GGG vs Kovalev is intriguing, but the weights look tough. GGG is a small 160lbs, Kovalev is a full 175 lber. Maybe they meet at 168 after they both take a fight or two to adjust to the weight. I'd rather see them face some better competition at their weight classes first (Pascal, Stevenson, Hopkins for Kovalev, Geale, Martinez, Chavez, Sturm, Murray, Quillin for Golovkin) and if they can beat some of those quality guys, they should be good enough to fight Ward, which is a more intriguing mesh of styles imo.

Haha, yea I'm sure many Manny sparring partners have had to "let Manny win" in the ring. Nah, these guys use thicker gloves and head protection to begin with. Alexander is obviously full of it. Sparring with Manny I'm sure has helped Porter improve as a fighter. Not that he's likely good enough to beat Alexander, but one can only hope.

Despite not winning many rounds vs Macklin, I felt he showed some promise. I also agree that his frame seems kind of big (long mainly) to fight at 154.

I've always liked Geale, I hope he gets right back in there. Other than GGG, I can see him upsetting any of the belt holders.

The way people talk about Macklin is why so many good fighters don't just fight the best opponent available. You lose a few fights to really good fighters (Martinez, GGG, robbed on a decision vs Sturm, etc.) and everyone says you're garbage. Macklin is a very good fighter. There aren't 10 fighters at 160 better than him. He'll likely show us that when he fights Nelson in December. Anyways, Macklin probably is better than Stevens. Stevens is the one who hasn't fought anyone yet. This is his first real opponent, and he already has losses under his belt. Maybe his comeback is real, maybe he's better now, but we have no idea because his impressive knockouts are against garbage. I expect GGG to dismantle him, but honestly, besides a handful of top fighters at 154-168 range, who do you think GGG would not dismantle? You see how the #3 ranked 160 Quillin struggles with Rosado, a guy that gave GGG absolutely no challenge. And Macklin, a guy that hung in there for 11 solid rounds against Martinez, gets hammered by GGG. A year or 18 months ago you could call GGG a soft undefeated, but he's legitimate now. It's just time to see if he's a top fighter in 154-168 range, or if he's the very best in that range. Hopefully this is an impressive win that gets him a Martinez, Alvarez, Froch type fight in 2014.

Pac vs Floyd is still the biggest fight in boxing by far. And all this hate for Manny is silly to me. He beat Bradley, he was beating Marquez and just got hit by a home run punch. If he destroys Rios he'll be nearly as good as ever. He's also younger than Floyd, but I guess in boxing years he's far older. He should give Floyd more trouble than anyone he's fought since at least De La Hoya, if not Castillo. I can't imagine anyone at 140-154 that would give Floyd more issues than Manny. Not Garcia, not Bradley, and we saw how poorly Marquez and Cotto did. I think it would be a cool fight. I don't think anyone dodged the other the first time around. It looked like Camp Floyd kept their usual "I need to be in control and set the terms" mindset (they never seem to NEED to fight any one opponent, which people seem to mistake for ducking people) and Arum was hardballing over the price (Floyd was outselling Manny on comparable PPV value by 10-20% at least, thus justifying a 55-45 split at a minimum... Arum didn't seem interested in using market value to make this fight, instead just talking about how much money was involved and they should be happy closer to 50-50). In any case, it was both sides fault for it not happening, Money never treats an opponent as if he needs to fight him and Arum wasn't respecting the market value for the splits. Things have changed since then: There's literally nobody Floyd can fight up or down one weight class from 147 and feel it will be competitive, and Arum could use a huge payday for Manny, who has lost a little luster after an atrocious decision and unfortunate knockout.

Schaefer is full of it here. Gee Richard, the reason why people are so hard on Ariza is because he's always immediately lying when something happens. He said that the test was likely a result of some over the counter non PED. It sounds like it was a banned stimulant to me. Ariza is just so full of crap every time they talk to him and that's why it is fair to blame him. If he's blameless, he should stop responding with ridiculous lies every time people ask him what happened, and perhaps more people would trust the guy.

While those would be cool fights, Marquez is on the wrong side of the promotional fence to get those fights. It's just talk though. Clearly Maidana is going to fight Broner again next, so Marquez is just talking as much as Floyd was "considering" Maidana (even if Maidana was/is a better fighter, Khan is worth more money so they are going with him). He should fight Provo and in turn (win or lose) be given a rematch with Bradley after Bradley's fight with Manny (win or lose too).

So the article says things are just heating up. But to me, it seems like this is quite possibly the end of this dispute. It seemed based on Guerrero's lawyer's remarks, that the entire dispute hinged on California having different rules than New York. So once California pushes this to New York, there is likely no argument, correct? Of course, the lawyer's quote may not have told the entire story, but it seems quite possible that this all hinged on California.

I'm sure they would offer Murray more than 300k to fight GGG in April on HBO. These problems with nobody knowing who GGG is are a thing of the past. His name has grown leaps and bounds, first from the Macklin fight, now from the Stevens fight. Another likely KO victory in February to stay busy, and he'll be on a big HBO show in late April and able to fight someone like Geale or Murray you'd think (for 500k+).