Boxing

Boxing

IBO/WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara’s mismatch against Yuri Foreman (34-3, 0 KOs) last Friday night brought in good ratings on Premier Boxing Champions on Spike. Lara (24-2-2, 14 KOs) won the fight by a 4th round knockout over the 36-year-old Foreman. Foreman was also down in round 3 of their fight at the Hialeah Park Racing & Casino in Hialeah, Florida.

The match brought in an average of 547,000 viewers with a high of 707,000 on Spike TV. Lara ended the fight with an uppercut that put Foreman down for the count. Surprisingly, the Lara-Foreman fight pulled in more viewers than the Daniel Jacobs vs. Sergio Mora rematch fight had brought in. That was a mismatch too.

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IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook is bellyaching that he can’t get a big fight against one of the top stars in the 147lb division, and that he may need to defend his title next against his mandatory challenger Errol Spence Jr. or else be forced to give up his IBF title by the International Boxing Federation.

Brook doesn’t understand why he can get a big money fight against Amir Khan, Danny Garcia, Manny Pacquiao or Keith Thurman. The problem that Brook has is pretty clear. Those guys are all busy or have other plans. The fights happen rarely, and there’s a lot of waiting involved with them. Look at Garcia and Thurman.

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Strap in for April 23, fight fans.

The biggest boxing fight in Australia's history has been confirmed, with Aussie boxer Jeff Horn set to fight Filipino and reigning champion Manny Pacquiao in April.

The announcement was made at 2:30pm (AEDT) in Brisbane on Wednesday, with the fight set to be held on April 23.

The location is yet to be confirmed, but organisers are hopeful the fight will occur at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane -- calling for the Queensland Government's support. However, they do not secure funds and support in Brisbane the organisers will turn to other capital cities, and haven't ruled out the U.S. or the Middle East.

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David Haye and Tony Bellew had an uneventful meeting for their The Gloves Are Off taping on Friday without the two of them going at it. Haye said they needed to have a 10 minute cooling off period when things started to get heated at one point.

Haye (28-2, 26 KOs) says he can’t wait to get the 33-year-old Bellew into the ring on March 4 so he can belt him around the ring and knock him out quickly. Haye says he’s hoping Bellew can bring some talent to the ring, because he would like to see the fight make it to the 5th or 6th rounds for the boxing fans. But, Haye doesn’t see the talented needed for Bellew to do much in this fight other than get knocked out quickly in front of the fans at the O2 Arena in London, England.

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Andre Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) is now in the hot seat with his close/controversial 12 round unanimous decision win over former IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) on November 19 last year Not only is Kovalev gunning for Ward’s titles in a badly wanted rematch, but also unbeaten #2 IBF Artur Beterbiev (11-0, 11 KOs), who will be facing the winner of the Ward-Kovalev 2 fight unless the winner chooses to vacate the IBF belt.

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Eddie Hearn says he’d like to match his heavyweight Luis “King Kong” Ortiz (27-0, 23 KOs) against unbeaten American heavyweight Jarrell Miller (18-0, 16 KOs). Hearn says he’s going to speak with those fighters to see if they’d be interested in the fight. Hearn says he already spoke with Showtime Sports executive Stephen Espinoza about the fight, and he’s in favor of it.

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The heavyweight division is not stacked right now, certainly not as thick with talent as some of the lighter weight classes. Alexander Povetkin’s potential matchup with Deontay “the Bronze Bomber” Wilder was scratched due to a failed drug test; Tyson Fury’s rematch with Wladimir Klitschko was also cancelled for a failed drug test (among other issues). The first match between Fury and Klitschko, while an upset in Fury’s favor, wasn’t much to write home about. Despite these drawbacks though, there is still enough going on in the division to excite the diehard fan.

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Former welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather said Wednesday he was "interested" in a fight with Conor McGregor and had already offered the mixed martial arts star $15 million to climb into the ring with him.

Mayweather, who retired in 2015 with a perfect 49-0 record, told ESPN's First Take program that a McGregor bout was the only thing that could tempt him to end his exile from the ring.

The 39-year-old was responding to a question about whether he would consider a rematch with Filipino star Manny Pacquiao following the duo's much-heralded "Fight of the Century" two years ago.

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A bizarre scene played out on the undercard of one of Japan’s year-end boxing cards in Tokyo.

Ryota Murata (12-0, 9 knockouts), the 2012 Olympic middleweight gold medalist from Nara, Japan, found the target on Mexico City’s Bruno Sandoval (19-2-1, 15 KOs) in the third round with a shotgun right hand that stunned him before a right hand behind the ear sent him flat on his back with his eyes wide open.

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