Three Punch Combo – An Under the Radar Fight Certain to Entertain and More

THREE PUNCH COMBO — This is a busy week in the sweet science. There is the big rematch on Saturday night (more on that later). In addition, Top Rank has a very big card of its own on ESPN on Friday night. I love all these events but there is another card on Thursday in Las Vegas that really piques my interest. And that is because I think the main event in the 140-pound division between Ruslan Madiev (12-0, 5 KO’s) and Pablo Cesar Cano (30-7-1, 21 KO’s) is going to be a scorcher.

Cano (pictured) is one of my favorite action fighters. He is a relentless pressure fighter who is more than willing to abandon all defense and eat leather just to create openings to land one or two power shots of his own. He is heavy handed with his best punch being the classic Mexican left hook to the body. Essentially, his strategy is to look to break down his opposition with constant pressure and body punching. Regardless of whether he is successful or not, his style always leads to entertaining scraps.

Madiev is also an aggressive fighter by nature and a volume puncher. Though he may not have the power of Cano, Madiev will be the much busier fighter. Similar to Cano, defense is not one of his strong suits. He lacks head movement and often stands in the pocket too long after hurling off combinations making him an inviting target to be countered.

Matchmaking is key to making fan-friendly fights and this is an example of excellent matchmaking. Madiev, with his volume, will be landing frequently on the defensively challenged Cano. But Madiev’s weaknesses of his own on defense will create opportunities for Cano to counter. I don’t see Madiev being able to hurt Cano either, or even get Cano’s respect to where he will slow down his aggressiveness. Essentially, this is going to be a high contact war for the duration of the fight and could, when all is said and done, be a sleeper candidate for fight of the year.

Subtle Factors To Keep In Mind For Canelo-Golovkin II

The much anticipated rematch for the middleweight championship between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KO’s) and Gennady Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KO’s) is finally here. There has already been plenty of talk and plenty written about this fight. Instead of focusing on the obvious, I want to dig in a little deeper and look at a few subtle factors that may factor into the outcome.

Golovkin turned pro in 2006 as a middleweight. For 12 years, he has fought in the same weight division. Granted, he is a fitness machine, but he is now 36 years old and making 160 can’t be as easy as it once was. And he has been doing it for such a long time that it has to be taking some kind of toll on his body. Again, he is a fitness freak but Father Time catches up on all of us and our bodies. There will come a day when making 160 becomes a very difficult endeavor that zaps quite a bit of energy from Golovkin. Could that be for the rematch with Alvarez? I don’t know, but it needs to at least be mentioned.

Canelo will be coming off nearly a one year layoff, the longest layoff of his career. As such, there is certain to be some ring rust. Remember in the first fight, Canelo was sharp early, landing some eye popping combinations. The first couple rounds seemed to play in favor of Canelo before Golovkin started to come on with his pressure. In a fight that could be close, if Canelo does not come out sharp and loses the early rounds this could play a telling tale on the scorecards.

Speaking of the scorecards, the three judges for the rematch  — Dave Moretti, Glenn Feldman and Steve Weisfeld — are three of the best boxing judges in the world and I would go as far as saying if these three worked more bouts together that we would see far fewer controversies. Check out their work and with the exception of one or two anomalies they are generally on the button with their scores. I am 100 percent confident that if this fight goes to the scorecards that we will get the correct result.

But will it go to the cards? Golovkin and his trainer Abel Sanchez are sure trying their very best to get under the skin of Canelo, challenging his manhood and questioning his “Mexican” style. This is a ploy in my opinion to get Canelo to stand in front of Golovkin and exchange more than he did in their first fight.

Have Sanchez and Golovkin in fact gotten under the skin of Canelo? Have they goaded Canelo into standing still and trading more than he did in the first fight? If so, it is not only to Golovkin’s advantage but will more than likely take the fight out of the hands of the judges.

PBC, Matchroom Boxing and Top Rank – My Excitement and My Concerns

2018 in boxing will be known for landmark broadcasting deals. Just this week, PBC announced its own landmark deal with Fox on top of its previously announced deal with Showtime. Matchroom Boxing is launching DAZN this week in the United States which is an online streaming platform promising to deliver marquee fights. And Top Rank has recently announced a new expanded partnership with ESPN to bring even more live boxing to their various platforms.

Fans will have access to more live boxing than ever before in the history of the sport. For a diehard fan like myself, I can’t help but be very excited. Not only will live events in the United States increase but we will now have access to worldwide fights that previously could be only be found on illegal and choppy streams.

This is all good for boxing, right? Well it should be but problems can also arise with the way these deals are structured.

The first big potential problem is that fighters aligned with these entities may only fight on the platform on which their entity is aligned. We have seen this before with television deals in boxing and it can get ugly. Crossover fights involving different entities become nearly impossible to make. One side usually has an edge (meaning their fighter is favored to win) and the other side is leery to make a deal. Plus, working out which platform the fight occurs on gets complicated. The only exceptions tend to be when a sanctioning body orders a fight or a fight becomes so big that the parties are motivated to work out a joint deal.

The other problem is that with the abundance of fights there will be many times where big events run concurrently. When two big fights take place on the same date and at the same time, eyeballs get split and everybody ultimately loses — the fans because they can only watch one event live, the promoters because interest is split, and the sport because marquee fights can only be seen by half the audience.

I am very excited about the abundance of live boxing that is about to be available in the United States. But it won’t be all positive unless those involved can find a way to work with one another and history suggests this probably won’t happen.

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