Callum Smith (24-0, 17 KOs) is looking forward to taking his career to the next level by facing – and beating – WBA Super World super middleweight champion George Groves (28-3, 20 KOs) in their fight this September in the World Boxing Super Series (WBSS) tournament finals. The fight will be taking place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
World Boxing Council interim light welterweight champion Regis Prograis weighed in at 139.8 pounds on Friday for his defense on Saturday night against unbeaten Juan Jose Velasco on Top Rank Boxing at the Lakefront Arena of New Orleans, Louisiana. The Argentinian Velasco, 31, weighed in at the light welterweight limit at 140 lbs.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is planning on matching Vasyl Lomachenko (11-1, 9 KOs) against either Manny Pacquiao (59-7-2, 38 KOs) or the winner of the August 25 fight between WBO 135 lb. champion Ray Beltran (35-7-1, 21 KOs) and Jose Pedraza (24-1, 12 KOs) in November or December.
"Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance."
--W. Clement Stone
By Alex P. Vidal
LOS ANGELES, California -- Filipino-American journalist Granville Ampong warned us we could kiss goodbye our media accreditation when Manny Pacquiao fights next year either against Juan Manuel Marquez for the fourth time or Floyd Mayweather Jr. if we spoke our mind out against the Pacquiao-Marquez III decision.
NEW ORLEANS (July 11, 2018) – Championship boxing is back in "The Big Easy" on Saturday at the Lakefront Arena. Native son Regis "Rougarou" Prograis (21-0, 18 KOs) defends the WBC super lightweight diamond belt against fellow unbeaten Juan Jose Velasco (20-0, 12 KOs), while unbeaten lightweight sensation Teofimo Lopez (9-0, 7 KOs) looks to continue "The Takeover" against once-beaten William Silva (25-1, 14 KOs) for the vacant WBC Continental Americas lightweight title.
By Michael Angelo S. Murillo
ON SUNDAY, July 15, Filipino boxing superstar Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao makes his return in the ring as he takes on Argentinian Lucas Matthysse for the latter’s World Boxing Association (WBA) welterweight title in a fight dubbed “Fight of Champions” at the Axiata Arena in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
But unlike the Pacman’s fights in the past, not many are completely sold on the Matthysse bout, and that is not without reason, a local combat sports analyst said.
WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia (29-0, 25 KOs) will be defending his title in 10 days from now against Liam ‘Beefy’ Smith (26-1-1, 14 KOs) on July 21 in a 12 round fight on HBO. The 21-year-old Munguia says he’s going to emerge from the Smith fight being mentioned in the same breath as middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin and Saul Canelo Alvarez.
WBO lightweight champion Raymundo Beltran (35-7-1, 21 KOs) will be facing replacement opponent former IBF super featherweight champion Jose Pedraza (24-1, 12 KOs) rather than his previously scheduled opponent #1 WBO Roman Andreev, who had surgery for appendicitis. Beltran will be defending against Pedraza on August 25 on Top Rank Boxing on ESPN at the Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
#PACMAN FLIES PAL. Philippine Airlines, official carrier of Team Pacquiao,flew Manny Pacquiao’s entourage on board a chartered PAL Airbus A321 jet fromGeneral Santos direct to Kuala Lumpur afternoon of July 9 for Pacquiao’s ringmatch with Lucas Matthysse this weekend. Sending him off included PAL’s VictorSuarez, area head for Mindanao; and Harry Inoferio, senior asst. VP for Visayas &Mindanao. In command of the flight was Capt. Patrick Michael Roa.
Anthony Joshua took to his social media site today to post a photo of himself upside down, saying that he’s still waiting for a signature. IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Joshua (21-0, 20 KOs) and his wily promoter Eddie Hearn are both waiting for WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder to agree to the $15 million flat fee offer given to him, which he’s no longer interested in accepting for a fight next year on April 13 at Wembley Stadium in London, England.
Amir Khan’s promoter Eddie Hearn says Amir Khan has the style to give WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford a lot of problems when/if the two of them face each other in the future. Khan (32-4, 20 KOs) is taking a tune-up fight against low level contender Samuel Vargas (29-3-2, 14 KOs) on September 8 in Birmingham, UK.
Hearn wants the World Boxing Association to make the Khan-Vargas fight a WBA title eliminator with the winner of the fight being the mandatory challenger to the winner of this Saturdays fight between WBA ‘regular’ welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse and Manny Pacquiao.
WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia (29-0, 25 KOs) says his goal is to knockout mandatory challenger Liam ‘Beefy’ Smith (26-1-1, 14 KOs) this month on July 21 at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Munguia’s trainer Robert Alcazar wants him to knockout the 29-year-old Smith before the 9th round. If Munguia does what his trainer is hoping he’ll do to Smith, we could have a new star in the 154 lb. weight division.
(JULY 7, 2018) ‑ The next chapter in the storied career of former eight-division world champion and future first-ballot Hall of Famer, Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao, will stream live and exclusively in the United States on Saturday, July 14 at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN+ — the recently-launched multi-sport, direct-to-consumer subscription streaming service from The Walt Disney Company's Direct-to-Consumer & International segment in conjunction with ESPN. This will be Pacquiao’s first fight since headlining cable television’s highest-rated and most-watched boxing telecast since 2006, when he fought Jeff Horn in July of 2017 on ESPN.
