Rugged Luis on the rebound

Shawn Smith
12/06/2015 11:57am

It’s almost 10pm on a weeknight and, while most professional fighters in the middle of training camp would be settling down, Tony Luis’ night is just getting started. This is the life of a fighter who hasn’t reached the top of the mountain, one who has a family to fight for and a mortgage to maintain. Luis is just weeks out from his 26 June showdown with Dominican Edward Valdez, which serves as the co-main event on the CBS Sports Network. It’s not the most high profile opponent Luis has faced, but that doesn’t make the bout any less important. A loss would derail his career and remove him from any world title conversations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H8bf-pAZis

 

TKO Radio: The Good Son, The Hall of Fame, The Debut

TKO Radio
10/06/2015 12:10pm

While Riddick Bowe, Naseem Hamed, Ray Mancini and others get ready for their International Boxing Hall of Fame inductions this weekend, Scottish amateur heavyweight champion Ross Henderson makes his pro debut. Writer and host of Top Men Boxing Radio, Patrick Connor, also joins TKO Radio to talk about a potential Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez fight and how that clash may impact upon another huge name in the sport. TKO previews the weekend's Nicholas Walters-Miguel Marriaga and Deontay Wilder-Eric Molina fights. Jesse James Miller, writer and director of the well-received 2013 documentary 'The Good Son' about Ray Mancini's life, also joins TKO to talk about the 2015 Hall Of Fame inductee and his film. 

Prizefighter Tom Doran

John A. MacDonald
09/06/2015 11:14am

Prizefighter is nothing if not unpredictable. In its eight-year run, the eight-man, one night, knockout tournament has provided the viewing public with a raft of surprises. The nature of the format, designed to produce the unexpected, was perhaps the least significant obstacle facing Tom 'Dazzlin' Doran when he entered the 35th instalment of the event, this time at middleweight, in February. The Welshman had only had one six-round contest in the past three years yet had the utmost confidence he would be victorious. “I genuinely believed I was going to win,” Doran told Boxing Monthly.

Felix Verdejo: The next Puerto Rican superstar

John Evans
08/06/2015 10:25am

‘Ser Boricua Es Un Honor’ reads the poster for Felix Verdejo’s upcoming fight with Ivan Najera. ‘To be Puerto Rican is an honour.’ “It means a lot to me. The love and the support they [the Puerto Rican fans] give me is something I want to return to my people and to everybody who supports me out there,” Verdejo told Boxing Monthly ahead of his 13 June fight with Ivan Najera at Madison Square Garden Theater. “It motivates me to work even harder because I don't want to disappoint anyone."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe5w4hoR6fE

'The Ghost' Guerrero speaks

Michael Montero & Tiffany Lam
07/06/2015 7:43pm

Michael Montero interviews multi-weight world champion Robert 'The Ghost' Guerrero just minutes after his hard-fought victory over Aron Martinez, which headlined Saturday's Premier Boxing Champions' (PBC) card at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. Guerrero won a split decision in a tough bout where he had to get off the canvas in the fourth round. 

Guerrero-Martinez PBC Ringside Recap

Michael Montero & Tiffany Lam
07/06/2015 7:29pm

Highlights, news and views of the Premier Boxing Champion's card at the StubHub Center in Carson, California, on 6 June. In the main event, former world champ Robert Guerrero won a split decision over Aron Martinez in a tough fight. The card also featured wins by giant, undefeated heavyweight Dominic Breazeale and Argentina's WBA 'regular' featherweight champion Jesus Cuellar.

The leverage of Cotto

Ben Thomsett
07/06/2015 10:50am

Being champ gives you leverage. This is common knowledge. In last night’s Miguel Cotto vs Daniel Geale showdown for the WBC middleweight title, we found out what that leverage meant and, more importantly, what it shows us of the future. From the start of the bout, Cotto showed us that working with Freddie Roach had sharpened him up and given him some discipline. He was tight, focused, compact and landed some great left hooks to Geale's body. Geale seemed to be caught between plans, never seeming settled despite trying to take the fight to the Puerto Rican. "Don't give him momentum," Roach said at the end of the first round. "Don't let him come to you." 

Luke Campbell: Will to succeed

Andrew Harrison
06/06/2015 10:50am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8olv2DAgxtY

Perhaps no other anecdote personifies Luke Campbell better than the one he shares about his fledgling amateur career, when as a self-confessed ‘little fatty’ fuelled on crisp sandwiches and fizzy pop, he was repeatedly thrown to the wolves by a trainer who told him: ‘I’ve always got a towel I can throw in’. Despite losing seven of those first ten fights, Campbell refused to be disheartened. He went on to become surely the most decorated amateur in British boxing history. “That is my talent,” he offered over coffee in a hotel bar situated within a workaday retail park in Hessle, along the north bank of the Humber Estuary. “My talent is being dedicated. It’s my will to be better than I was yesterday.” As if to illustrate the point, the unbeaten lightweight met with Boxing Monthly just days prior to jetting off to train alongside Cuban super-bantamweight marvel Guillermo Rigondeaux in Miami. 

Crolla on the comeback

Danny Winterbottom
05/06/2015 10:10am

Instead of helping his girlfriend Fran Sanderson with final Christmas preparations, as he looked forward to a world title challenge on 23 January, Anthony Crolla lay in a hospital bed nursing a fractured skull and a badly broken ankle after a neighbourly deed turned sour. He gazed at his body, usually in prime physical condition after months spent in trainer Joe Gallagher’s gym but now wired to machines that monitored his vital signs on a ward at the Royal Oldham Hospital, and wondered if he would ever lace on a pair of gloves again. In fact, he was lucky to be alive.

Latest World and British Ratings (June 2015)

Colin Harris
04/06/2015 1:55am

Boxing Monthly’s World and British rankings for June 2015 are explained by Colin Harris, our in-house ratings statistician. Trainer, fighter, manager and promoter queries are welcome.

 

Kieran Farrell: The fighter remains

Declan Taylor
03/06/2015 10:25am

On 11th July, Terry Flanagan will box for the WBO lightweight title a short walk from his home in Manchester. A week later, just across the famous fighting city, Anthony Crolla takes on Darleys Perez for the WBA's title in the same 9st 9lbs division. Meanwhile, around nine miles further north in the small town of Heywood, a 24-year-old intrinsically linked to both men continues his boxing career in a very different fashion.

“You see Terry,” says Kieran Farrell, leaning back on a chair in the reception of his community gym. “He's the same kid as me. And Crolla? Well, we all know what happened there.”