By Scott Gilfoid: Italian light welterweight Gianluca Branco (41-2-1, 21 KOs) defeated Britain’s Colin Lynes (31-4, 12 KOs) by a 12-round split decision to take away his EBU (European) light welterweight title tonight at the PalaRuffini, Torino, in Piemonte, Italy. Branco, 37, did little in the first half of the fight, seeming to lose all six rounds. To make matters worse, Branco was knocked down in the 2nd round. After six rounds, it looked like an easy night for Lynes, 30, who was faster and had much better defensive skills than the slow-footed Branco. However, starting in the 7th round, Branco began to land heavy shots and appeared to hurt Lynes at the end of the round with a couple of big right hands.

It appeared that Lynes did more than enough in the final five rounds to get the decision, appearing to win both the 9th and 10th rounds and then giving away the final 11th and 12th to Branco. I wasn’t all the surprised that Branco ended up with the decision, though, because the fight was fought in Italy, Branco’s home, and figured it was par for the course. Despite being the champion, Lynes would have to fight as if he were the challenger in order to ensure that he got to hold onto his title given the situation. Read more

By Jim Dower: Former WBO bantamweight champion Jhonny Gonzalez (38-6, 32 KOs) had a tougher than expected time defeating former IBF light flyweight champion Mauricio Pastrana (34-9-2, 22 KOs) , stopping him in the 4th round of a scheduled 10-round bout tonight at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in Cabazon, California. Gonzalez, 26, lost the 1st and 3rd rounds, but came on strong suddenly in the 4th and dropped Pastrana with a pair of devastating left hooks to the head. Upon getting up, Pastrano received more of the same, with Gonzalez immediately driving him across the ring with a double left hook to the head. Once having him up against the ropes, Gonzalez buried him with a flurry of hooks to the head, causing the referee to move in and stop the fight at 2:32 of the 4th round. Read more

By Aaron Klein: Former WBO/IBF heavyweight champion Chris Byrd (40-5-1, 21 KOs) experienced one of his most humiliating losses in his career tonight when he was stopped by light heavyweight Shaun George (17-2-2, 8 KOs) in the 9th round of a scheduled 10-round bout at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Byrd, coming off of a 11th round TKO in his last fight against Alexander Povetkin in October 2007, made what in hindsight appears to be a hasty move by losing close to 50 lbs and moving down to the light heavyweight division. Though he said he felt fine, Byrd looked anything but fine against George tonight, appearing badly weak in the legs and gaunt in appearance. Read more

By Nate Anderson: According to boxingtalk, former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman (45-6-2, 36 KOs) will be fighting a title elimination bout on July 16th, which will be shown live on ESPN. Both Rahman and Toney are getting up there in age, with Rahman now 35 and Toney a ripe 39, so this may turn out to be a last ditch attempt for either of them to get a title shot. However, you can never say never and as bad as the current heavyweight scene is, even the loser may eventually find his way back into a title shot if only because of the lack of talent and big named fighters in the division.

Toney, 39, previously faced Rahman in March 2006, fighting for Rahman’s then WBC heavyweight title, with the fight turning out to be a controversial draw that left both fighters unsatisfied. Most people felt that Rahman had won the fight given his superior work rate during the fight. However, it was all for naught as the fight was ultimately ruled a 12-round draw. Rahman would turn around and his heavyweight title some five months later in a 12th round TKO loss to Oleg Maskaev in August 2006. Since that time, Rahman has beaten a string of mostly 3nd tier fighters, Taurus Sykes, Dicky Ryan, Cerrone Fox and most recently Zuri Lawrence, leaving many people to wonder when Rahman would eventually step it up against top level opposition once again. Read more

By Chris Williams: A couple of weeks ago it was announced that WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (30-1, 23 KOs) would be fighting “Champion emeritus” Vitali Klitschko (35-2, 34 KOs) in October with the WBC heavyweight title on the line. Up to this point, I’ve heard a lot of people putting the 36 year-old Vitali down, suggesting he would likely re-injure himself training for the fight and that even if he did make it to the fight, Peter would quickly blow him out because of the long extended period of time (four years) that Vitali has been away from the ring.

I personally think there’s going to be a lot of disappointed fans come October when Vitali not only beats Peter, but thrashes him in the same fashion that Vitali did with Kirk Johnson, beating him by an easy 2nd round TKO in their December 2003 WBC title eliminator bout. Johnson was built along the same lines as Peter, around 6’2”, and with a rounded physique. In fact, Johnson, in his prime, had better overall skills than Peter – much better hand speed, work rate, and almost equal in power. Yet, Vitali jumped all over him in the first round of their fight and quickly bludgeoned him into submission, dropping him twice in the second round before the fight was ultimately stopped by the referee by Arthur Mercante Jr. at 2:54 of the second round. Read more

By Eric Thomas: In the latest boxing news, various internet boxing forums are talking about the possibility that undefeated WBA/WBC/WBO super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) could be facing undefeated WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (33-0, 29 KOs) in the near future, but only if Pavlik can get by his next opponent Gary Lockett, whom he fights on June 7th, at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Personally, I think the news is nothing but a bunch of hogwash, because Calzaghe, 36, is likely not about to face his toughest opponent out there before picking off his scrape opponents, like Roy Jones Jr., who Calzaghe has been reported to be very interested in fighting next.

To me, the Pavlik news is nothing more than a bargaining tool, so as to get the 39 year-old Jones to the table at a lower price than what he could ask for if there were other available big-named opponents for Calzaghe. Though I think if push comes to shove, Calaghe would face Pavlik next rather than Jones, but that would only be after they had exhausted every attempt at making the Jones fight work first. Read more

By Erik Schmidt: Once-beaten cruiserweight contender Marco Huck (20-1, 15 KOs) will be fighting Frantisek Kasanic on Saturday night in a scheduled 12-round bout at the Oberfrankenhalle, Bayreuth, in Bayern, Germany, for the vacant IBF Intercontinental cruiserweight title. Huck, only 23, was turned back in his attempt to challenge for the IBF cruiserweight title last year in December against champion Steve Cunningham. Huck started well in the first three rounds but seemed to tire badly from that point on, only rarely attacking Cunningham with any meaningful punches.

It was a particularly bad performance for Huck, in that he was made to look almost amateurish by the highly skilled Cunningham, who essentially took Huck slowly apart with nothing more than a slow jab accompanied with an occasional slower right hand. For those who had expected more from Huck in the fight, they were badly disappointed in his woeful performance against Cunningham. However, Huck appeared to have been rushed into the bout a little too fast, because he’d fought few quality cruiserweights leading up to the fight other than Vadim Tokarev, whom he beat by a 12-round majority decision. Read more

By Scott Gildfoid: Ricky Hatton (43-1, 31 KOs) hopes to get back on the winning track next week when he takes on the tough Juan Lazcano (37-4-1, 27 KOs) at the Manchester Stadium, in Manchester. Hatton, 29, is coming off a 10th round stoppage to WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr., who pierced Hatton’s former image of invincibility in a lopsided fight that Hatton was never really competitive in. Now, Hatton is looking to rebuild his career, hoping to put the loss behind him as he moves forward to try and get beyond the loss. For Hatton, Lazcano serves the purpose of a confidence builder, for he’s nowhere near the equal of Hatton in terms of talent and will likely be nothing more than a human punching bag for Hatton, come May 24th.

Hatton has yet to say what his plans are beyond the Lazcano fight, but most people seem to think that he’ll either fight IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi or possibly a rematch with Mayweather. Obviously, there’s little reason for another Mayweather bout, other than more money for both fighters, because Hatton wasn’t in the same league as Mayweather in the talent department. Hatton, however, seems to have formed somewhat of a chip on his shoulder since that fight, saying “I have to redeem myself again.” Read more

By Manuel Perez: 2004 Cuban amateur Gold Medalist super featherweight Yuriorkis Gamboa (9-0, 8 KOs) meets up this weekend with Darling Jimenez (23-2, 14 KOs) at the Buffalo Bills Hotel, in Primm, Nevada. After only nine fights, many people, this writer included, feel that Gamboa is already the best super featherweight in the division, even better than champion Manny Pacquiao and former champion Juan Manuel Marquez. While this is only speculation on most people’s part, the evidence seems to suggest that Gamboa is already far better than Pacquiao in terms of talent, and well on his way to being more popular than him, at least in the U.S., if not the Philippines where Pacquiao resides.

If you’re why people feel so strongly about Gamboa, it only takes a couple of views of his fights to figure why. He has knockout power in either hand, and doesn’t waste time in his bouts with all the preliminary feeling out period in the first couple of rounds. Instead he goes right after his opponent like there’s no tomorrow, trying to take him out with every shot. It’s clear that he’s a harder puncher than Pacquiao, though he’s not nearly as fast as him in terms of hand speed. Read more

Welterweight superpowers MIGUEL COTTO and ANTONIO MARGARITO, and Hall of Fame promoter BOB ARUM will embark on a coast-to-coast media tour next week announcing “The Battle!” / “La Batalla!” — their compelling and eagerly-awaited world welterweight championship fight. Cotto (32-0, 26 KOs), from Caguas, Puerto Rico, and Margarito (36-5, 26 KOs), from Tijuana, Mexico, will duke it out for the welterweight championship of the world, headlining a pay-per-view extravaganza, Saturday, July 26, at the MGM Grand Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Read more

In stark contrast to the circulating stories of an illness during training camp, which turned out to be nothing more than a fleeting minor virus, IBO/Ring Light Welterweight World Champion Ricky Hatton extended an open invitation to the British press yesterday to witness a rigorous display of his healthful condition. There has been no denial from Team Hatton that Ricky picked up a virus for a short period, but he was so far advanced in his training that he was already preparing to cut back. Read more

By Erik Schmidt: Unbeaten cruiserweight prospect Alexander Frenkel (14-0, 10 KOs) faces perhaps his toughest challenge of his short career when he meets up with American Cory Phelps (12-3-1, 7 KOs) on Saturday night at the Oberfrankenhalle, Bayreuth, in Bayern, Germany. Frenkel, 23, will be fighting for the vacant IBF Youth cruiserweight title. Frenkel is coming off an impressive 5th round stoppage over American Arthur Williams in his last bout in February. In that fight, Williams was totally dominated and dropped twice before the referee stopped the one-sided bout in the 5th.

At 23, Frenkel, originally from Ukraine and now living and fighting out of Germany, is one of the top cruiserweight prospects in the world, though he has still yet to fight any top level opposition thus far in his career. In selecting Phelps, Frenkel’s management is choosing a tough opponent, one who many felt beat Bobby Gunn in their recent 6-round draw in March. Even though his record isn’t all that impressive with his three losses, Phelps is much better than his record indicates. He has excellent power and moves well around the ring. That is precisely the type of fighter that may turn out to be the Achilles hill for Frenkel, who despite his enormous power in either hand, he’s somewhat stationary, and moves rather poorly for a top level fighter. Read more

By Aaron Klein: Undefeated light middleweight prospect Alfredo Angulo (12-0, 9 KOs) makes his second appearance of the year this Saturday night when takes on Colombian Richard Gutierrez (24-1, 14 KOs) in a bout for the vacant WBO Inter-Continental light middleweight title at the Buffalo Bills Hotel, in Primm, Nevada. Also on the card is undefeated light middleweight contender James Kirkland a super featherweight phenom Yuriorkis Gamboa, so this will be a good chance for the young 25 year-old Angulo to show off his skills in comparisons to fellow light middleweight Kirkland.

Angulo represented Mexico in the 2004 Olympic Games, losing to Ireland’s Andy Lee. Since turning professional in January 2005, Angulo has strung together a high percentage of knockouts in that short time period, with four of him nine knockout victories coming in the 1st round. In his last two fights, Angulo has surprised many with 1st round knockouts over the tough veterans Archak TerMeliksetian and most recently Ricardo Cortes. Most people hadn’t expected Angulo to win so impressively over either fighter. More to the point, some fans felt that Angulo wouldn’t be able to get by TerMeliksetian at all period, let alone knock him out in the 1st round. Read more

By Nate Anderson: In one of the poorer scored fights I can recall seeing, light welterweight prospect Joel Torres (9-0-1, 5 KOs) and Christopher Fernandez (15-4-1, 9 KOs) fought to an 8-round draw on Wednesday night at the Gotham Hall, in New York, New York. The final judges’ scores were 77-75, for Torres, 78-74, for Fernandez and the third judge scored it 76-76. I personally had Torres winning by several rounds, but I suppose the judges’ can’t be blamed because Torres, who had came into the fight as the one expected to win, was hardly impressive to say the least. In fact, both fighters looked bad and fought a mostly boring fight, holding often and landing few hard shots in the fight.

Torres concentrated mostly on the midsection of Fernandez in the opening round, hitting him with hooks repeatedly. Fernandez, the bigger and stronger guy, allowed the shorter Torres to crowd him. Although Fernandez, 32, seemed to relish the idea of fighting on the inside for some reason, often coming in close to Torres and trying to out-punch him at close quarters. Being the shorter guy, Torres seemed more than happy to oblige Fernandez with his inside fighting game and freely fire back with short punches. The punches were terribly weak, however, which is where the judges’ probably figured that Fernandez was doing better, even though he was landing much less frequently than Torres. So far, I was coming close to being impressed with neither fighter. Read more

By Nate Anderson: Light welterweight prospect Francisco Figueroa (19-2, 13 KOs) defeated Luis Rodriguez (22-2, 13 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision on Wednesday night to retain his NABF light welterweight title at the Gotham Hall, in New York, New York. The final judges’ scores were 118-110, 117-111 and 116-112, all for Figueroa. Going into the fight, the 23 year-old Rodriguez was thought to have been able to make this a close fight based on his excellent record. However, at once glance of his record, with all of the fights taking place against unknown opposition, I should have been more skeptical about his chances in the fight.

Built like a tall string bean, Rodriguez rarely used his height to his advantage against the much shorter Figueroa. Instead, Rodriguez allowed t Figueroa to bull his way to the inside and stay there for most of the fight, hitting Rodriguez over and over with short head shots. In fact, Rodriguez took an awful lot of head shots for a fight with such a low level title at stake. With the fight going very much against him in the later rounds of the fight, he may have been better off if he had just folded his cards and quit on his stool in between rounds, especially considering he had no power to speak of an almost a zero chance of scoring a knockout of Figueroa. Read more

By Scott Gildfoid: In somewhat of a disappointing move, former 2004 Cuban Olympic heavyweight Gold Medalist Odlanier Solis (9-0, 6 KOs) will be reportedly fighting former heavyweight contender Francois Botha (45-4-2, 28 KOs) on May 30th in Spain. The fight would have meant much more say five years ago when Botha was still fighting regularly, but since that time the 39 year-old Botha has fought only one time and clearly isn’t the same fighter he was in his prime. This seems to be a case of Solis fighting a named fighter so as to increase the Cuban’s stature in the division.

Despite winning the Gold Medal in 2004, Solis has still done little as of yet, mostly fighting soft opposition. In his toughest fight to date against 6’4” Cisse Salif in March, Solis struggled badly, missing often and having problems with Salif’s size. To be sure, Solis, a smallish heavyweight at 6’0”, looked horrible in the bout and nothing like a future champion. If not for Salif’s lack of offense, this would have easily have been a loss for Solis, who looked like he didn’t belong in the same ring with Salif. I had expected that Solis would continue moving up against better opposition after the Salif fight, but he immediately went back to fighting C-class opponents in his next bout, a fight against a badly overmatched Georgian fighter Mamuka Jikurashvili, who Solis dropped three times with body shots en route to a 2nd round TKO in April. Read more

Former Heavyweight Champion of the World Larry Holmes has dismissed the current crop of heavyweight boxers as nothing more than ‘big and strong guys who don’t know how to fight.’

Speaking to Setanta Sports News Holmes said:

“If you want to prove yourself as a champion, you have to fight everybody and anybody who comes up and gives you that challenge. You have to prove yourself worthy of being Heavyweight Champion of the World. Read more

When unbeaten super featherweight phenomenon Yuriorkis Gamboa (9-0-0, 8 kos) steps into the ring against Darling Jimenez (23-2-2, 14 kos) this Saturday (May 17th) in Primm, Nevada, it will not only be the HBO debut of the Cuban Olympic gold medallist, but also his chance to win the WBC international championship. The title had been laid down by none other than Phillipinian superstar Manny Pacquiao before “Pacman” stripped the world title from Juan Manuel Marquez on March 15th. Read more

Olympic gold medallist Odlanier Solis and former world heavyweight champion Francois Botha were meant to meet in the ring in December 2007 but the “White Buffalo” drew in his horns on very short notice. Now everything is set and the contracts are signed for the fight to take place on May 30th in Bilbao, Spain.. Read more

By Eric Thomas: Undefeated light middleweight contender James Kirkland (21-0, 18 KOs) faces his toughest test to date this Saturday night against the hard-punching Nigerian fighter Eromosele Albert (21-1, 10 KOs) in a bout for the vacant WBO NABO light middleweight title at the Buffalo Bills Hotel, in Primm, Nevada. Kirkland, 24, is coming off an exciting action packed bout with Allen Conyers in November 2007, a bout in which both fighters traded first round knockdowns before Kirkland’s superior power eventually took over and he was able to stop him later in the round with another knockdown. Since turning professional in 2001, it has been only in the past year that Kirkland has started to build a name for himself with victories over Billy Lyell, Ossie Duran, Mohammed Said and the aforementioned Conyers.

Most of the fights have been shown on ESPN, which has allowed a fairly substantial viewing public to see Kirkland fight. After watching his fight with Lyell, an 8th round TKO, l in February 2007, I can see why Kirkland has been getting so much television coverage. He goes right after his opponents from the opening bell in a style somewhat reminiscent of a Tough Man contest in which both fighters forgo any thoughts of defense while they try to take each other out as quickly as possible. In Kirkland’s case, he has a lot of skills and tremendous power to go with his high pressure style of fighting, which makes him much more appealing than the average fighters that are generally shown on cable. Read more