Boxing

[Chazza]

Yeah it was, I only caught the bit where they were talking about Joshua so not sure what Price said about getting back in the ring.

[calvoboy]

was this on last night with Price? i was flicking through but the show had well started so didn't want to watch it

if so did Price have much to say?

Very honest about what went wrong. Feels that he had too many easy knockouts earlier in his career and so hasn't done the rounds he needs to learn. Wants a fight in November and then hopefully another in December, on undercards away from Liverpool and hopefully going 8 or 9 rounds or more, to get active again and put in the longer round fights.

He was also very good as a pundit talking about other fights. Came across as articulate and knowledgable. You can see a future career for him in the media one day.

[PTP]

pleased he has said he wants at least one fight before the end of the year - as i said the other day, i felt he needed to get back in the ring this year - the longer you leave it the harder it'll be - get in there, get a win, get some confidence under his belt

Also - really like the idea of him getting away from liverpool

We have a tendancy to build up local hero's and get right behind - nothing wrong with that at all, but it's probably clouded him a bit - When your knocking out people (even if they are bums) in front of sell out big crowd at the Echo arena, all local fans singing your name, probably can't walk down the street in liverpool without getting big pats on the back and "pricey la, yer boss lad...yer'll batter dem klisckhos lad go ed" etc

it'll be easy to get a bit carried away - not suggesting he had, but the two poor defeats would suggest that some complacency had crept in.

I think getting away from liverpool, fighting on an undercard, not live on sky sports, not built up and advertised to death on PPV, without all the wannabe hangers on building up - go somewhere where he can just get in the ring with no big fanfare and get the job done - even abroad if needed would do him great

[Chazza]

Forgot he is still British and Commonwealth champion.

[calvoboy]

pleased he has said he wants at least one fight before the end of the year - as i said the other day, i felt he needed to get back in the ring this year - the longer you leave it the harder it'll be - get in there, get a win, get some confidence under his belt

Also - really like the idea of him getting away from liverpool

We have a tendancy to build up local hero's and get right behind - nothing wrong with that at all, but it's probably clouded him a bit - When your knocking out people (even if they are bums) in front of sell out big crowd at the Echo arena, all local fans singing your name, probably can't walk down the street in liverpool without getting big pats on the back and "pricey la, yer boss lad...yer'll batter dem klisckhos lad go ed" etc

it'll be easy to get a bit carried away - not suggesting he had, but the two poor defeats would suggest that some complacency had crept in.

I think getting away from liverpool, fighting on an undercard, not live on sky sports, not built up and advertised to death on PPV, without all the wannabe hangers on building up - go somewhere where he can just get in the ring with no big fanfare and get the job done - even abroad if needed would do him great

Don't know what his family commitments are like but it'd probably do him the world of good to go and fight in the US for a year. I'm sure I remember Lennox Lewis doing that at a similar stage in his career? It'd help him get away and focus on the boxing, expose him to new ideas and new experiences, and wouldn't do him any harm at all in terms of profile if he is going to make it as a genuine contender. Not sure how that would fit with his own plans or with defending his British and Commonwealth titles though.

[PTP]

good point

if i was him **** the british/commonwealth titles - unless of course, that's all he wants (which he clearly doesnt) just be a top domestic boxer

go to the states if he has the chance, just might turn it round for him for a few years. If he still has Lennox helping him out then he should be able to to get price sorted with a good gym/coach/location etc with his connections.

[marcus50bucks]

http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=352&cat=boxer

Boy I hope this isn't true. Earn the right to fight Mayweather by getting past Devon first.

[Chris]

Showtime should tell Floyd to **** off with this ****.

[spud_gun]

Amir and his people cashing out.

[Mike]

Am I missing something with that link? All it shows is a history of Floyd's opponents.

[marcus50bucks]

Am I missing something with that link? All it shows is a history of Floyd's opponents.

They had Amir Khan down as his next fight but they have since removed it.

[Zapater]

Another robbery for me in the JCC jr fight. I love this sport, but it's becoming harder and harder to watch. I know some of the rounds were close and could have been scored either way, but the wide margins of scoring is ridiculous. The one which had Chavez winning by 2 pts I can accept, but the 6,7 point differences aren't right. Something really has to be done, it's becoming far too regular of an occurrence. The off clanger is one thing, but it's appearing in every second fight these days. How anyone could judge the Mayweather - Canelo bout a draw is beyond me. It boggles my mind.

[muddym2002]

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/sep/26/floyd-mayweather-boxing-money-uk-fight

He is prizefighting's greatest heel since Jack Johnson, the undisputed king of convincing people to pay to watch him lose – even as he never comes close to doing so.

Floyd Mayweather, boxing's pound-for-pound champion and the world's highest-earning athlete, is a master of the salesmanship that is the difference between an elite fighter and an attraction, a craft that demands a vernacular of bombast and braggadocio. Yet his profligate made-for-TV persona gave way to sober, matter-of-fact reckoning this week, when he met a small number of press over lunch at the Vanderbilt Suites in midtown Manhattan.

It was 11 days after Mayweather badly mistreated Saul "Canelo" Alvarez in the sport's biggest event in years, improving his record to 45 wins in 45 professional fights. The promotion was an unqualified success, breaking records for pay-per-view gross (nearly $150m so far) and live gate (more than $20m). Mayweather earned a base purse of $41.5m for 36 minutes of work – a sum expected to balloon to more than $80m after his cut of the pay-per-view revenue and foreign receipts.

He has now generated nearly 13 million buys in his 11 pay-per-view fights, representing approximately three-quarters of a billion dollars in revenue – greater than the GDP of some countries. Yet this week the normally brazen Mayweather came off as secure and subdued, even humbled, as he took scope of his accomplishments.

"Look at my career and say, who's done a higher gate than me?" he said. "Who's done a higher percentage than me? Who took less punishment than me? Who has been dominating for 17 years, a world champion for 16 years?"

He was in New York for a victory lap that includes appearances on The Howard Stern Show, Fox Business's Cavuto, BET's 106 & Park, MSNBC's The Cycle, Comedy Central's The Colbert Report and Live! with Kelly and Michael, with the discussion focusing on his formidable business acumen as much as his performance. In an industry that has conspired to exploit and defraud fighters for as long as anyone can remember, the Grand Rapids, Michigan native has leveraged his success to rewrite the rules for himself.

Mayweather, at 36, seems to derive more satisfaction from being the smartest guy in the room than from being the greatest pure boxer of his generation – a title that is now surely beyond dispute.

With a nod to his exquisite technical skills and subscription to the hit-and-don't-get-hit school of boxing over satisfying popular bloodlust, he said:

"There's nothing cool about taking punishment. Everybody talks about pleasing the fans, but if you don't have all your faculties and all your screws are loose, the fans are going to move on to the next.

"I truly believe I could have banged with Canelo and eventually knocked him out in probably the eighth round, but I could have taken a lot of punishment also, which could have messed my career up to where I wouldn't have been able to fight four more fights.

"It hurts my feelings to look at [Muhammad] Ali's situation. He fought for the people, to please them. You've got to fight to please yourself first. Self-preservation."

Mayweather has four bouts remaining on his six-fight, 30-month contract with Showtime and CBS, worth a potential $250m, yet the supply of credible opponents is running alarmingly dry. Against Alvarez – possibly the biggest puncher Mayweather has ever faced, an emerging superstar nearly a decade-and-a-half his junior – he made it look elementary. He is so far ahead of everyone else, it's embarrassing.

Mayweather acknowledged on Wednesday that he is the dream opponent for everyone "from heavyweight all the way down to 105 [lb]," but said there was no longer a single realistic contender who would stand a chance against him. With Canelo went the best hope. "It's not my fault that in my era I was able to make A-level and B-level fighters look like D-plus fighters," he remarked, dispassionately.

Leonard Ellerbe, Mayweather's longtime manager, is confident the sport will continue to produce salable opponents. He noted that Alvarez – now immortalized as the B-side of boxing's highest-grossing fight ever – was barely on the radar until recently. "If I had told you two years ago that Floyd Mayweather would be fighting Canelo and he could potentially make $100m, you all would have called me a liar," he said.

Stephen Espinoza, the executive vice president and general manager of Showtime Sports whose signing of Mayweather from HBO represented a coup in the industry, spoke boldly about the fighter's international business strategy, speaking in martial terms about a "territory by territory" approach in Europe.

"The first one to knock down is the UK, because that's the one that's easy to transition to," Espinoza said. "The Money Team, Mayweather Promotions, [promoting] his own fights, potentially. And once we get that base established in the UK, then pick another territory and continue."

Whether those claims intimated a forthcoming fight with Great Britain's Amir Khan - a fight that could fill Wembley Stadium - no one would say. Philadelphia's Danny Garcia, who scored a spectacular win over Lucas Matthysse on the Mayweather-Canelo undercard, is another a popular pick for Floyd's next opponent. The only specifics confirmed are the dates of his next four fights: May 2014, September 2014, May 2015 and September 2015. Mayweather remained non-committal on whether he'd fight beyond then.

"Some days I feel like four more, some days I say six more. I don't know."

In addition to his fighting career and future plans, Mayweather discussed an array of topics:

On being named Forbes' highest-earning athlete without a penny coming from endorsements:

Basically a brand on my back doesn't define my greatness. I don't feel like Nike has to make me, I don't feel like Adidas has to make me. I don't have anything against the companies, but my company is [The Money Team]. I want to be the first. If they want to put a patch on my trunks, it's a seven-figure patch for 36 minutes. I don't feel like I have to be locked in a long-term deal. If I am locked in a long-term deal, there has to be longevity. I have to have some ownership.

On whether college athletes like the embattled Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel (on whom Mayweather is planning to back to the tune of $300,000 this weekend) should be financially compensated:

I didn't get paid when I was an amateur. You appreciate it a lot more. Amateur is nothing but a learning experience preparing you for the professional level. I don't feel like college athletes should be paid. I feel like they should get more per diem, they should have better living if they compete at the highest level.

On walking to the ring with Justin Bieber (again):

I don't think it's really about image. I got love for everybody, not just no certain individual. I'm basically saying just because I'm a black American, the only type of music I listen to is hip-hop, which is not true. I listen to everything. My daughter's a fan of Justin Bieber. If she listens to Justin Bieber, I'm going to listen to him. I have an open mind and i'm not just one-dimensional. When you're the best, you only want to deal with the best and align yourself with the best.

The winter of Mayweather's career offers the promise of cashing out. He has already weathered the most glaring hit to his otherwise bulletproof legacy, as if with one of his instinctive shoulder rolls: that he never fought Manny Pacquiao when that fight still mattered.

Seldom do two boxers considered the best in the sport come from the same weight class – and rarer still are both roughly the same age. That was no dream fight, it was an obligation: a fight the public had made. The details of why it never came together – ego, politics, fear – are not worth recounting here. Suffice to say, Mayweather-Pacquiao would have been the richest fight in history and it's failure to materialize remains the tragicomic nadir of boxing's institutional dysfunction. But the Filipino came up Wednesday only tangentially, with Mayweather never explicitly mentioning his name.

For a figure whose personal life has attracted and often come to embody chaos, Mayweather has done much to subtly rehabilitate his image after serving two months in jail last year, on a domestic violence charge – a topic that was not raised Wednesday and rarely mentioned during the promotion. He casts himself as a family man and comes across, genuinely, as a person who has finally been able to achieve the one thing his riches could not buy: peace.

"Me and my dad are getting along, my mother is happy, my children are getting a good education and I'm healthy," he said. "I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life."

[marcus50bucks]

I thought Adonis Stevenson put on a terrific display last night. A lot has been said about his one punch knockout power but he showcased his boxing skills against Cloud. The speed and accuracy of his punches were great to see. He made Cloud look like an amateur at times. Surely him and Kovalev will get it on at some point next year.

In the meantime I think Bellew is next for Stevenson. I hope Bellew wins but he'll have his work cut out if the fight happens.

[spud_gun]

Another robbery for me in the JCC jr fight. I love this sport, but it's becoming harder and harder to watch. I know some of the rounds were close and could have been scored either way, but the wide margins of scoring is ridiculous. The one which had Chavez winning by 2 pts I can accept, but the 6,7 point differences aren't right. Something really has to be done, it's becoming far too regular of an occurrence. The off clanger is one thing, but it's appearing in every second fight these days. How anyone could judge the Mayweather - Canelo bout a draw is beyond me. It boggles my mind.

Good read on the ****e that Jr and Arum have been pulling of late

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/boxing--julio-cesar-chavez-jr--s-lack-of-professionalism-embodies-all-that-is-wrong-with-boxing-183209534.html

Jr apparently was close to 195lbs in the ring last night. Shocking