Finally time to get excited about boxing again. Some pretty decent fights coming up over the next couple of months.

Devon Alexander vs. Juan Urango this weekend. Alexander should win, but Urango is a fucking tank, and has never been stopped. Over 11.5 rounds is at -170. I like the over.

Pacquiao vs Clottey on the 13th. I can't believe Manny has shot up to -625. Clottey's no pushover, but he doesn't stay busy enough to win a decision, and he doesn't have the power to stop Manny. If Manny somehow manages to stop Clottey, expect the PED pot to be stirred up again. Thinking Manny by decision at +125ish.

Wladimir Klitschko vs Eddie Chambers. Nothing to see here. Fast Eddie is skilled, but he's just not big enough. Wlad dominates again.

Arthur Abraham vs Andre Dirrell. This one was supposed to be this weekend as well, but Dirrell suffered a slight back injury, and had to push it back a couple of weeks. After being robbed blind against Carl Froch, I'm really finding myself pulling for Dirrell here. But I'm a fan of Abraham also. I'll go out on a slight limb here and take Dirrell at +145. If he can keep from getting himself knocked out, I think he can win a decision.

Bernard Hopkins vs Roy Jones Jr. LOL. 15 years too late, fellas.

Mikkel Kessler vs Carl Froch. I'm really happy seeing Kessler at -170ish. I honestly believe he will handle Froch pretty easily. I'm just not sold on Froch at all. His 2 biggest wins are against washed up Jermain Taylor, and he was 15 seconds away from losing that one, and his most recent match against Dirrell, where he was awarded a hometown decision. Nothing more, nothing less. He lost that fight. Then acted like he out boxed Dirrell after the fight. lolz. I hope Kessler pummels him.

Kelly Pavlik vs Sergio Martinez. I'll have to really look at this one. I've said for a while now that Sergio is a bad, bad match up for Pavlik. Sergio is slick, and if he can handle Pavlik's power at 160, this one could get really, really interesting.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs Shane Mosley. Mosley has decent speed, a lot of power, and punches from some crazy angles. But he's there to be hit, and for a guy with the accuracy of Mayweather, you can't just "be there". If Mayweather would let his hands go more, he could beat Mosley up pretty badly. But, this has Mayweather UD written all over it. Mosley always has a punchers chance though.

Looking forward to the next couple of months for boxing.

I'll be in Vegas March 4-10, wonder if any sportsbooks will show the Urango/Alexander fight? It's not a big fight by any means, but it's Vegas, so maybe I'll get lucky and find it on somewhere.

Carry on.

Def hit me up when you get out here. -625, that's ridiculous.

For sure.

nice to have a true boxing fan like you around here jmm.
there arent many of us around.

maybe on purpose, but u didnt mention lucian bute vs edison miranda. it will be shown on hbo the same night as pavlik martinez.

as for pavlik martinez, what sergio showed against a beast/punching machine like paul williams is all you need to know about this fight. i gave it to williams 115-113, but it could have gone either way or a draw would have been appropriate. one of the best fights i have ever witnessed live (tv). (i usually watch em on tape). sergio is too slick like you said, he will win.

as for miranda bute, edison miranda and his trainer ricky funez are two of my favorite people in boxing. i will be meeting edison and ricky when they come here to montreal and wishing him all the best against bute in a championship fight. he is huge dog tho .

i agree with flyd vs shane bein a ud for floyd, pretty obv. ya shane can punch, but floyd aint margarito who has poor movement.you cant punch something you cant touch.

clottey is a fuckign beast and has sick boxing skills, i see it being tko 11 for manny but the first 5 rounds should be close.

i thought clottey beat coto for what its worth.

srry for writing so much but, i only have a few friends that are true boxing fans so i get excited when people talk about it.

also khan vs malignaggi seems like a done deal aswell as cotto foreman. wooooooooooooooooot, so many great fights.

godspeed

oh and like you said jones vs hopkins is 15 years too late, but still has appeal because it is two legends going at it.

im not sure who wins , slight edge to hopkins i guess.

jmm did it ever cross your mind that jones took a dive vs danny green to get payed millions by the australian mafia???.

how do you explain that fight? journey man vs legend and legend gets ko'd 1st round?? wtf

and now hes faceing hopkins??? and is confident he will bust up hopkins block head??? makes no sense.

Heh. Miranda/Bute is going to be so one sided. I like Pantera, and I want to pull for him, but Bute is going to kick his bootay (how corny is that?).

I felt like Martinez edged it against Williams, but there's no way to really gripe about it going to P. Will. The major gripe would be with the one lopsided scorecard. That mother fucker's card was filled out before those two ever stepped foot in the ring.

I thought you could make a case for Clottey beating Cotto. But Cotto didn't really win that fight, as much as Clottey gave it away. Cotto was there for the taking the last few rounds. Gassing, on his bike as he usually does toward the end of fights. Clottey just didn't do enough to take it away from him. If Clottey would let his hands go more, he'd be right at the top of that division. I really feel like that cut had a serious affect on Cotto though. If not for the cut, I think he wins that fight more clearly.

Khan/Malignaggi could get interesting. Paulie's a slick little shit, and he's got a rock solid chin, but he doesn't have the punching power to mess your hair up. Khan hits like a truck, but has a weak chin. If Paulie can't get Khan's respect early by hurting him, Amir should be able to walk him down and earn a UD or late stoppage.

I'm completely torn on Cotto/Foreman. Will be interesting to see Cotto at 154. I'm just not sure what Cotto's got left. Yuri Foreman has got some serious skills. This one has the making to be a great, great fight. If they offer up decent odds on Foreman, I'll probably jump on it.

I was OK with the stoppage in the Jones/Green fight. I don't think RJJ took a dive, to be honest. Danny Green punches hard as fuck, and I know the punch didn't look like much, but if you watch the fight, and look at Jones' eyes as he staggers, he really looks hurt. His eyes were glossy, and something definitely wasn't right.

Roy Jones is confident he'll beat Hopkins because he's Roy Jones. He doesn't know any other way. I imagine Hopkins will beat Roy as badly as he so chooses. If he wants to stop Jones, he will. I know one thing for sure... This is going to be one boring ass fight.

And if/when Pacquiao beats Clottey, and Mayweather beats Mosley (as they should), I would LOVE to see a Mosley vs Clottey match up. I think that would be a great fight.

But I've got a feeling we've seen the last of Mosley after the Mayweather fight. Unless he wins, then Mayweather will break out the rematch clause.

B Hop vs RJJ is one of the biggest frauds in recent history that I can think of. RJJ has literally no shot at beating Hopkins, none! Just a big payday for both is all it is.

Completely agree. This is about a payday and nothing more. And it's probably not going to be near the payday they thought it would be.

Williams has no power, it's easy to be slick when a guy has to rely on volume over power and all you have to avoid is being hit often, rather than once. Obv. I'm a bias fan with Pavlik being local and knowing his family, but I'm unconcerned about this fight, and I'm often concerned about many of his fights. He's too strong for martinez. When this goes off I'll be more than happy to book your action.

I'm a Pavlik supporter, and I would like to see him do well against Martinez...

How well Martinez handles Pavlik's power is the big question here. Martinez is a 154 lber, and he's going to be hit harder than he's ever been hit before in his life. But you're talking as if Pavlik has one punch KO power. He absolutely does not. He wears you down with a volume of punches, and finishes you late. Martinez has better boxing skills than Pavlik, if he can take Pav's punches, and doesn't gas in the championship rounds, it's going to be a good fight. There's no question that Martinez can out box Pavlik, the question is how well will he handle Pav's power punching over the course of the fight.

A slick fighter like Martinez, or Pavlik's other option, Sturm, is always reason for concern.

Other than Hopkins/Taylor, which Pavlik fight(s) in the past were you concerned about?

When a kid is coming up you worry about a lot of fights, as you're unsure if he's a world class fighter yet. Guys like Abraham worried me until I was sure he was a world class fighter, because until you get to those top 5 guys, you don't know, especially with Kelly's lack of mobilty and suspect hand speed. I just see this fight going the way a lot of his fights have. He'll wear him down and take him out around 7-9th round I'm fairly certain.

He may not have 1 punch power, but he has a few punches power, much different beast than Williams, and I think too much for Martinez from what I've seen of him.

When Martinez got knocked down against Williams, his balance was off. There were other spots where his balance was bad that fight, Williams simply didn't catch him clean. He did a lot of good things in that fight, but he made me cringe at times also with getting his base out of balance and leaving himself open. If he doesn't significantly improve that, he'll get caught a few times and it will be over.

When I watched that fight I thought it was closer than when I re-watched it. It wasn't 119-110 like the one clown had it, but Williams won comfortably imo. Williams face cost him a round or two on 2 of the cards.

I saw a lot of Martinez being off balance as well. But I think the reason for that might be that he didn't really respect Williams power, so he let himself get careless. He's going to respect Kelly's power right from the jump. I would be shocked to see him walking around with his hands down against Pavlik. If he does, he'll get knocked the fuck out. And he'll deserve it. Williams is a lot faster than Pavlik also. Pavlik's punches will be coming with more power, but they won't be coming as often. Pavlik is going to need to be pretty accurate with his punches to win this one. He can't afford to miss, because he's not fast enough to keep himself from eating counters.

Of course, this could turn out looking a little like Hatton/Malignaggi. If Martinez can't hurt Pavlik, Kelly might just walk him down the entire fight, with no concern for the punches coming back at him.

im a pretty big fan of paul williams and going into this fight sergio martinez was an unkown to me, so i admit i was biased going in.

but if you look at those two knock downs that happend in round 2 i think, martinez half slipped and the punch was almost a glancing blow. when paul williams got knocked down in that same round, it looked like he was going through the matrix, it was a clean, hard, devistating punch to his his head. many fighters would not have gotten up from that punch in my opinion. what i learned out of that fight is how much of a true warrior paul williams is. not that martinez has avg power.

i wouldnt under estimate martinez's slickness or power, buster, i know pavlik is apperantly a great guy and a very good fighter, but in my opinon martinez will be too slick and win a decision.

you made some great points jmm

according to my still kinda begginer boxing knowledge(but im catching up), this scenario is impossible. we shall see.

also, i think hopkins vs roy jones will be a boring fight. but there will be some moments of greatness where these two warriors go old school, and roy jones will pull out that trade mark swag and razzle dazzle. just for those brief moments alone, its worth it to watch.

just noticed i said abraham. meant miranda when talking of earlier fights

lol, makes sense now

I think it's unlikely the fight plays out like that too. Martinez is just too skilled to get dominated by anyone. I can't see this being anything other than a hard fought, competitive fight.

A couple of things that have gone unmentioned.. Martinez is a southpaw. It will be interesting to see what kind of game plan Pavlik has to try and deal with that.

And Martinez has been known to get dragged into center of the ring battles, when the smarter move would have been to just keep boxing his opponent. If he gets in there and tries to mix it up with Pavlik, the way he did with Williams, he's going to get knocked out.

As I said earlier, Pavlik is going to have to be really accurate in this one. Martinez is a really good counter puncher, and Pavlik can't afford to be missing all night.

Yeah. I was kind of curious where you were going with that one. At any rate, Pavlik/Abraham was the one I really wanted to see at 160. Pavlik can't beat him at 168 though.