Another one up, another one down for Ontario’s Brandon Cook, who successfully defended his WBA Intercontinental Super Welterweight title on Saturday night against Uruguay’s Rafael Pintos.
Michael Montero reports from Las Vegas with a video of the Miguel Cotto-Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez weigh-in ahead of their highly anticipated showdown later today.
Commonwealth super welterweight champion Liam Williams will return to the ring for the first time in 13 months, following hand surgery, when he faces Scotland's Kris Carslaw on Frank Warren's 'Christmas Cracker' card on December 19 at the Manchester Arena headed by Andy Lee and Billy Joe Saunders' WBO middleweight world title fight.
Amidst the darkness of defeat there are victories to be found.
The record will show that Nathan Cleverly lost a 12-round unanimous decision to Andrzej Fonfara just over four weeks ago in Chicago. What the black and white of it all will not say was how much Cleverly was involved in the fight and has a case for what might have been had his nose not been broken in the seventh round.
United Promotions, Ontario’s most prominent boxing promoter, returns on 21 November after a three-month layoff with a card featuring WBA super-welterweight Intercontinental champion Brandon Cook and a slew of local prospects looking for another opportunity to break out. Cook (15-0, 9 KOs) headlines the show against Rafael Sosa Pintos, known to British fans for being dismantled by Callum Smith (LTKO3) in October 2014. “I’m looking for Brandon to make a statement,” United Promotions’ Tyler Buxton told Boxing Monthly. “Pintos is a bigger guy, coming down from middleweight where he fought for the WBA middleweight Intercontinental Championship over there [Europe] and went eight rounds. If Brandon can find a way to get him out before then, that would be a nice little statement.”
Michael Montero analyses the highly anticipated fight between Miguel Cotto and Saul Alvarez on 21 November. 'Canelo', the Mexican superstar, challenges the Puerto Rican future Hall of Famer for his WBC middleweight title. The bout will headline an HBO Boxing PPV card live from the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
The car park of the famed Mayweather Boxing Club in Las Vegas usually doubles as a showroom for the latest and greatest European sports cars. Weave your way between the various immaculately manicured Lamborghinis and Bugattis and you will find ‘The Money Team’ spending an increasing amount of time tending to a 20-year-old ‘Tank’. Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis’ reputation and amateur achievements earned him the ear of Floyd Mayweather Sr and Roger Mayweather and eventually got him an audition with the man himself.
Michael Montero discusses the career trajectories of boxing prodigies Vasyl Lomachenko and Guillermo Rigondeaux and supposed different treatment from the media, fans, promoters and networks. There has been chatter in boxing social media circles about unfair double standards - and perhaps racism - behind the different ways both fighters have been received by the public and handled by the networks.
There comes a time in everyone's life when you're faced with a choice that involves risk. For Manchester’s Jimmy 'Kilrain' Kelly that choice was to accept an opportunity to challenge for a WBO world title yet risk facing a heavy favourite in 154lb champion Liam Smith on 19 December.
Morecambe-based heavyweight contender Tyson Fury fights for the heavyweight world title in less than three weeks and the 27-year-old believes that his keen grasp of boxing history coupled with his versatility will ensure that he upsets the odds and end Wladimir Klitschko’s reign. Fury (24-0, 18 KOs) is a keen student of the game, he told Boxing Monthly that knowledge of your sport and division is essential if you are to succeed. “When it comes to my job, I have to know my business - you couldn’t have a bricklayer who doesn’t know how to lay bricks,” Fury told BM. “I’m a heavyweight boxer so have to know the heavyweights. I know about every heavyweight in the world, his record, his stance and whether he’s any good. I have to.”
