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Daniel Jacobs Wants Saunders for April Return at Barclays Center
By Keith Idec
Daniel Jacobs hopes Billy Joe Saunders will return to North America for his next fight, this time to New York to face him.
Jacobs is likely to fight again April 28 at Barclays Center in his native Brooklyn and wants a shot at the British southpaw’s WBO middleweight title. Saunders’ willingness to travel to Quebec to defend his title against Montreal’s David Lemieux gives Jacobs and his handlers some confidence he’ll seriously consider defending his championship against Jacobs in Brooklyn.
“We’re definitely looking to fight Billy Joe Saunders next because Triple-G and Canelo most probably will have their rematch May 5th,” Keith Connolly, Jacobs’ manager, told BoxingScene.com. “So the guy that makes the most sense for Danny is Saunders. I’ll contact his people and see what their level of interest is. But I think that would be a huge fight in New York City for Danny.”
Saunders (26-0, 12 KOs) would prefer to fight Canelo Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin, yet understands that they’re headed toward the middleweight championship rematch Connolly mentioned. The 30-year-old Jacobs (33-2, 29 KOs) has an exclusive contract with HBO and Saunders just defeated Lemieux (38-4, 33 KOs) in a bout HBO televised from Place Bell in Laval, Quebec, Canada, thus that fight seems like at least a possibility.
The 28-year-old Saunders could, however, make an easier optional defense against a less imposing opponent than Jacobs because by beating Lemieux he fulfilled his mandatory obligation with the WBO.
“I can see him avoiding Danny because Danny is such high-risk and Saunders is looking to cash out in a Canelo or Triple-G fight,” Connolly said. “But to fight one of those guys, he should go through Danny first. Danny, in my eyes, is the best middleweight in the world. But in the eyes of a lot of people, he’s the third-best middleweight in the world.
“So it should be a mini-middleweight tournament, with Canelo and Triple-G in one bracket in the rematch in May, and Danny and Saunders in the other. And then the winners fight each other in September. That would be the logical and the most entertaining thing for fans at this point, to have some sort of a middleweight tournament.”
Saunders enhanced his status in boxing by beating Lemieux so easily. An athletic, intelligent Saunders used his stiff jab and terrific footwork to befuddle Lemieux, and fought a very disciplined defensive fight to soundly defeat the hard-hitting Lemieux (120-108, 118-110, 117-111).
“I thought Saunders proved that he’s one of the elite middleweights in the world,” Connolly said. “He had great stamina, great boxing ability. It was a total shutout. I couldn’t find one round to give to Lemieux and he proved that he belongs as one of the top five or six middleweights in the world. He was definitely a lot more impressive than I expected him to be.”
stringer bell;c-10136802 said:http://www.boxingscene.com/arum-lomachenko-make-joke-mikey-garcia-make-him-quit--123293
Arum: Lomachenko Would Make Joke of Mikey Garcia, Make Him Quit
By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Bob Arum is sure Mikey Garcia would suffer the same fate as previous opponents if Garcia agrees to fight Vasyl Lomachenko.
Garcia’s former promoter predicted Lomachenko would make Garcia quit in a 135-pound fight following Lomachenko’s technical knockout victory over Guillermo Rigondeaux in their WBO 130-pound championship match Saturday night in The Theater at Madison Square Garden.
“Mikey Garcia’s an excellent fighter,” Arum said. “He’ll hang with [Lomachenko] until he’s ready to get knocked out and then he’ll probably quit.”
Lomachenko hasn’t decided if he’ll move up again, this time from super featherweight to lightweight. If he does, Garcia is the best, most appealing opponent for the Ukrainian southpaw at 135 pounds.
Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs) also is one boxing’s top 10 fighters, pound-for-pound, yet Arum doesn’t consider him a true threat to beat Lomachenko (10-1, 8 KOs).
“He’ll make a joke of [Jorge] Linares, he’ll make a joke of Garcia,” Arum said. “Oh Jesus, these guys, they’re really good fighters, Linares, Garcia. This guy is super-special. You’ve never seen anything like this. He’ll go up to 135, maybe to 140. I don’t know. But he’s gonna do this to everybody.”
Arum isn’t certain, however, that a Lomachenko-Garcia fight is a realistic possibility for Lomachenko’s next fight, expected to take place in “March or April.” That fight will be harder to make than most because of the contentious history between Garcia and Arum’s Top Rank Inc.
The 29-year-old Garcia, a native of Oxnard, California, paid to terminate his contract with Top Rank, his longtime promoter, in May 2016.
That contractual conflict between Garcia and Top Rank kept the three-division champion out of the ring for 2½ years. The WBC lightweight champion has rejuvenated his career, most recently by beating former four-division champion Adrien Broner (33-3, 24 KOs, 1 NC) by unanimous decision in a 12-round, 140-pound fight July 29 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.
“Who knows?,” Arum said of making a Lomachenko-Garcia fight. “If I say it, then I’m chasing. Let’s see. It’ll all come. With ESPN behind us, we have plenty of money to offer opponents for really good fights. And ESPN, they want the best, and this kid is the best. … I would put him in with anybody [at] 135 pounds. Anybody in the world at 135.”
Arum realizes it’ll take a healthy seven-figure offer to entice Garcia to battle Lomachenko.
“Hopefully it’ll be made,” Arum said. “You’ve gotta pay these guys a lot of money because they’re not stupid. They’re great fighters. Garcia’s a great fighter. Linares is a great fighter. But ask them, deep down, do they have a chance with this guy? They’ll tell you no.”
Deontay Wilder-Luis Ortiz in Works for March 3 at Barclays Center
By Keith Idec
Deontay Wilder and Luis Ortiz apparently meant what they said when they went face-to-face earlier this month.
BoxingScene.com has learned that representatives for Wilder and Ortiz are negotiating for them to fight March 3 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. That deal isn’t finalized, but Wilder wants to fight Ortiz next, even after their November 4 bout was canceled due to Ortiz’s failure to adhere to the WBC’s “Clean Boxing Program.”
Wilder went to Ortiz’s last fight to challenge Ortiz in person. They talked trash to each other in the ring after Ortiz (28-0, 24 KOs, 2 NC) knocked out journeyman Daniel Martz (16-6-1, 13 KOs) in the second round December 8 in Hialeah, Florida.
Wilder (39-0, 38 KOs) told BoxingScene.com last month that would agree to fight Ortiz again, despite how angry and frustrated he was when their fight was canceled late in September, just a week after the official press conference to announce it in New York. Wilder warned Ortiz during that press conference to not “f*ck up” their fight by failing a test for a performance-enhancing drug.
Cuba’s Ortiz tested positive for two diuretics he and his team claim came from prescribed medication for high blood pressure. His failure to disclose that he was taking that medication before he was tested was a violation of the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association’s rules.
VADA performs PED tests for the WBC, which refused to sanction Wilder-Ortiz as a fight for its heavyweight championship. The 32-year-old Wilder, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, instead made a mandatory defense of his title against former champion Bermane Stiverne (25-3-1, 21 KOs), who was knocked out in the first round of their rematch November 4 at Barclays Center.
The WBC has since ruled that independent physical examinations determined Ortiz requires medication for high blood pressure and kept the 38-year-old contender in its rankings. Ortiz, who is ranked No. 3 by the WBC, previously tested positive for an anabolic steroid following his first-round knockout of Lateef Kayode in September 2014.
Failing that test cost Ortiz the WBA interim title he won by beating Kayode.
The WBA suspended him for a year and removed him from its rankings once Ortiz failed another test prior to his ill-fated fight with Wilder. Ortiz was the mandatory challenger for WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua before that suspension.
More than anything, Wilder wants to battle Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs), who owns the IBO, IBF and WBA championships, in a heavyweight title unification fight. That’s not an option for Wilder’s next fight, though, because the unbeaten British star appears headed for a unification fight against New Zealand’s Joseph Parker (24-0, 18 KOs), the WBO champion.
If, as expected, Wilder-Ortiz is finalized for March 3, there would be competing boxing shows that night in New York.
Another card that’ll feature WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev will take place in The Theater at Madison Square Garden on March 3. HBO is expected to televise two light heavyweight title fights from The Theater – Kovalev (31-2-1, 27 KOs) against fellow Russian Igor Mikhalkin (21-1, 9 KOs) and Kyrgyzstan’s Dmitry Bivol (12-0, 10 KOs), the WBA champion, against Cuba’s Sullivan Barrera (21-1, 14 KOs).
Negro_Caesar;c-10150725 said:If Keith Thurman ain’t #1 on your P4P list , your shit is wrong