Boxing Fulcrum

Martino Jules versus Pedro Marquez Medina breakdown

This is a real 50/50 fight for me between two prospects that i’m not overly high on. This doesn’t mean they can’t be in entertaining fights and hopefully this fight will prove that. Martino Jules is undefeated at 10-0 but has only really faced one good opponent. Pedro Marquez Medina is 12-1 and like Jules has only really faced one solid opponent.

Martino Jules is a southpaw who throws a lot of punches and keeps his opponents busy with jabs. His defence isn’t anything to write home about but hes not going to be eating punches for breakfast and isn’t a brawler stylistically. In the second half of the fight versus Jumakhonov I thought he started to gas out however he was still throwing a lot of punches even if they weren’t as accurate or snappy. He has fought more recently than Medina and most notably has fought under Covid restrictions so will be used to the bubble type environment.

Pedro Marquez Medina is fairly competent in most aspects but doesn’t throw many punches which could be a problem if this fight goes the distance. He has good power though hasn’t shown it when hes stepped up in competition so unless he catches Jules flush or gets to him late in the fight I personally would be surprised if he stopped him. This is his first fight in America and also his first fight with Covid restrictions so he may not be completely comfortably with the set up pre-fight.

I think Martino Jules will outwork Medina over the eight round distance and win a decision. If the fight was ten or twelve rounds then Medina would have more of a chance as Jules’s stamina fails him late on but over eight rounds I think he should be able to survive some scary moments late in the fight and end up taking the victory. If the judges favour Medina’s bigger punches or his power makes Jules hesitant and he wins a decision it wouldn’t overly surprise me though its not a likely outcome in my opinion.

Mykquan Williams versus Yeis Gabriel Solano breakdown

This should be a really solid fight between two rising prospects who have so far not seen a huge amount of exposure. Solano has appeared on television once while this will be Williams first time on television. Both are undefeated with records of 15-0 and 15-0-1 respectively.

Mykquan Williams is relatively average technically though isn’t horrible. He does struggle to cut off the ring and while he can sometimes use his physical strength in fights I doubt he’ll do it against a big puncher like Solano. I think he’ll most likely try and box from the outside and keep Solano at bay.

Solano is a southpaw brawler who is very willing to get into exchanges and gamble on his power being the difference. He’s a little flat footed but I can’t see that being a massive problem as Williams doesn’t have the best footwork himself. When I watched his last fight I was impressed until he started to gas out after the 4th round though that looked to be more an issue of not being in shape rather than some innate stamina issue. Judging from his social media it looks like hes been training hard.

I think this is a real 50/50 fight where either Williams will do enough to outbox Solano or Solano will catch Williams and potentially stop him or at least do enough to win the fight due to landing the more damaging punches. I personally think Solano will be able to catch Williams enough to take a decision or late stoppage as Williams doesn’t have a stellar defence.

Jose Nunez versus Aram Avagyan breakdown

This should be an entertaining fight between two undefeated prospects who haven’t got the spotlight or backing of a major promoter yet. Jose Nunez has been fighting mainly in Panama where he’s built a record of 11-0-1 versus average opposition. Aram Avagyan was a 2016 Olympian but hasn’t really progressed a huge amount in the pro’s and hasn’t put in good performances recently though he still holds an undefeated record at 10-0-1.

Jose Nunez is a southpaw with decent technical skills and good patience. I like that he sets up all his punches and isn’t afraid to slow the pace down and bait out reactions from opponents before punching himself. When he’s on the front foot he does little steps to get into range and constantly put pressure on his opponents but I’ve noticed hes excellent at counter punching when they decide to throw back. His defence and stamina seem solid though he has been dropped once.

Aram Avagyan had a good amateur career and clearly has technical skills himself though he hasn’t fully adapted to a pro style in my opinion. He’s still light on his feet and doesn’t look to stop his opponents rather than outwork and outbox them. I think hes relatively unpredictable as sometimes he’ll set his punches up with a jab while other times he’ll throw lead right hooks before attempting to work on the inside. His defence isn’t great and hes been dropped multiple times, I think this is mostly because he jumps in and keeps his hands low which means people will catch him at some point. He’s got a lot of heart as he’s comeback to win those fights hes been dropped in but its not a good sign for the future.

I think this is a real 50/50 fight but in my opinion Jose Nunez will be able to use his counter punching and patience to nullify Avagyan’s somewhat unorthodox aggression which will lead to him winning a decision. Neither have a huge amount of power and Avagyan has been in close fight after close fight and eventually you’ll come out on the wrong end of a 50/50.

The issues with top fighters fighting twice a year.

One of the most annoying things to me about boxing today is that once fighters reach the top they generally only fight twice a year for the rest of their careers. This hasn’t always been the case and only really became immensely popular once Floyd Mayweather started doing it.

The logic behind doing it is that you’ll get more money for those two fights because people know your only going to fight twice a year so suddenly your fights are like a rare resource that people are willing to fight and make time for. I don’t believe that the average top fighter makes more by fighting twice a year rather than four times it just takes less effort to get roughly the same payday.

I think only having two fights a year really limits fighters legacies as they can’t have as many top level fights as people did in the past and we sometimes miss out on fights purely because fighters have used up their allocated two fights on lesser opposition. I also think that fighters move to the twice a year model much to early now and we see fighters that are barely past the contender stage wasting their careers. The model worked for Floyd because he built up to becoming a PPV star and was the biggest name in the sport, the majority of boxers doing this model now aren’t stars and won’t become stars if they hide away for most of the year.

The last two problems are that fighters don’t get seen as much because they fight so irregularly and are also not as good because they barely fight. It also doesn’t help that if they get injured before one of their fights they can end up only having one fight in a year which for a boxer just isn’t good enough.

Hopefully as we get further away from Mayweather retiring we start to get boxers be more active and we are already seeing that a bit as Emmanuel Navarrete fights almost every other month as a world champion.

Hearn announces UK shows

Eddie Hearn has announced five UK shows that will take place over the next four months.

To start off the year on February 13th Josh Warrington will have his first fight with Matchroom and will defend his IBF featherweight world title versus Mauricio Lara who is relatively unknown and is really being used as a tune up before Warrington heads for a unification.

On the 20th of February Josh Kelly and David Avanesyan will finally face off after over 12 months of delays. This is one of the best fights in the schedule and the winner will be primed for a massive 2021 and 2022. If Josh Kelly wins he’ll redeem himself for looking average the last few years and can expect to be in a big fight versus Conor Benn by the end of 2021.

The third show is the only PPV of the five with Dillian Whyte and Alexander Povetkin facing off again after their explosive and dramatic first fight. The second should be intense and I can see either one winning which is always a good sign for a fight. The winner will be in a huge fight while the loser still has a lot of options in the division. I like the Ted Cheeseman versus JJ Metcalf fight on the under card as it’s a real 50/50 domestic match up and the sort of fight we should get more of.

On the 20th March Lawrence Okolie and Krzysztof Glowacki will fight for the vacant WBO Cruiserweight world title. This is a great match up between two top ten Cruiserweights where the winner can start to quickly clear out the division with Marius Briedis moving up to heavyweight. If Okolie can win a world title fight in only 16 fights it would be impressive and clearly put him ahead of his fellow 2016 Olympians from the UK who have so far been disappointing.

The last show that Hearn announced takes place on the 10th of April with Conor Benn versus Samuel Vargas headlining. I like this fight for Benn who is still developing as a fighter and doesn’t need to be rushed as while hes showing big improvements hes still only been boxing for four years. Samuel Vargas has fought a who’s who of top names though has lost to almost all of them and the highlight of his career may be knocking Amir Khan down.

I personally think considering how hard the pandemic has hit the UK that this is still a strong schedule with plenty of entertaining fights. From listening to a Hearn interview it sounds like more fights will be announced shortly as well.

Sergey Kovalev tests positive for banned substance

Sergey Kovalev failed a drugs test and is now out of his fight against Bektemir Melikuziev which is a real shame as it would have been a great fight.

Hopefully a replacement can be found but it seems like the whole card will be cancelled instead which is terrible for all the under card fighters as well. It seems like 2020’s bad luck will continue into the new year which doesn’t surprise me as I think we will have a few bad years in general.

Takuma Inoue versus Keita Kurihara breakdown

This should be a very solid domestic fight between Kurihara who is on a good run of form and Inoue who recently challenged for a world title. The fight is over twelve rounds for Kurihara’s OPBF bantamweight title.

Takuma Inoue is good technically but lacks the punching power of his brother. His defence is solid and he doesn’t do anything massively wrong. He does possess a bit more power than his record suggests and that could come into play in this fight.

Keita Kurihara is very much the epitome of a kill or be killed fighter. Hes aggressive and gives almost no thought to defence which is why hes won by knockout 13 times out of 15 wins. He’s also been stopped three times out of his five losses though has been on a good run since a loss to Hiroaki Teshigawara in 2017 which is no shame as Teshigawara is a solid contender at the weight above.

I think Takuma Inoue most likely wins a decision or a late stoppage as he should be able to pick Kurihara apart with his superior technical skills. Kurihara’s style leaves him very open so even Inoue who isn’t much of a puncher will have opportunities to drop and potentially stop him. I don’t think Kurihara has world level power so I’d be surprised if he could stop Inoue who has shown a good chin.

Jamel Herring versus Carl Frampton announced

Jamel Herring versus Carl Frampton has been announced and will take place on the 27th of February 2021. The fight has been cancelled multiple times due to the corona virus and injuries but it looks like it may now go ahead.

The only reason it won’t happen is if Shakur Stevenson uses his mandatory position to stop the fight and instead fights Jamel Herring himself.

The entry level to boxing is low and it hurts the sport.

For a while now i’ve seen through online interactions that the entry level to working in boxing is low and attracts all sorts of grafters who have no real passion for the sport but sport the usual unearned confidence and friendly smiles tinged with a hint of arrogance.

Again and again I see them walk into the sport with no qualifications and seemingly no real idea about the sport or its history and yet they get picked up and welcomed by unsurprisingly all the other grifters and grafters in boxing. A few months or years down the line we then seem them get exposed by someone as being a massive fraud who’s spent recent years treating people like shit behind the scenes.

This happens all the time and yet its the same reactions everytime, “wow he was such a nice guy” etc etc. They were never especially nice in the first place they just knew which people to suck up to and understand that being loud about a subject you know nothing about will get you further than being quiet and reasonable about a subject you know a lot about. The reason these people are aloud to worm themselves into the boxing community is because there is no entry level to get into the sport and a lot of the people that already work in the industry would be seen as jokes or frauds in other sporting businesses.

Unfortunately while we have a lot of talent in boxing at the moment we lack a good crop of writers that actually care about the sport and aren’t bitter and jaded. In recent years there have been less and less positions to cover boxing as the sport’s popularity in the mainstream audience has died down. I’ve written about this topic multiple times but every big event in boxing being put on PPV has hurt the sport perhaps irreparably combined with having no real structure which means the fighters that casual sports fans know don’t fight each other means boxing is mostly an afterthought in the sports world.

When you let unserious people work in boxing then you can’t expect people to take the sport seriously. The frauds that work in boxing never having to take accountability whether its a judge giving in bad score cards or a writer who’s bias and bitter towards certain fighters hurts boxing and if the sport is to grow to new heights these people have to be cut off.

Carlos Ocampo versus Abraham Juarez

This isn’t a horrible fight as while Ocampo is a good fighter he isn’t at world level yet so still needs solid tests like this. Abraham Juarez is turning into a journeyman but is durable unless facing top prospects and so this will be a good barometer for how good Ocampo is. I don’t judge him too harshly for getting KO’d by Spence in a round as he was young and against a fighter who most people now regard as one the top 10 best fighters on the planet.

I expect Ocampo to use his size and power advantages to wear Juarez down until he gets a stoppage between round 7 and 9. I don’t think Juarez has the technical skills or the power to trouble Ocampo though if he can make Ocampo get over confident he can perhaps catch him with a good shot or tire him out and then take over late in the fight.