Deontay Wilder KOs Dominic Breazeale In One Round

The “Bronze Bomber” Deontay Wilder made his return to the win column on Saturday, getting a first round KO victory over Dominic Breazeale, retaining his WBC Heavyweight Championship in Brooklyn at the Barclays Center. The win came after the Heavyweight Champion’s draw against Tyson Fury back in December, the first time Wilder saw a result that wasn’t a victory, and only the second time he finished a fight without a stoppage.

The victory came in the third minute of the initial round. After the referee separated the two fighters from a clinch, Wilder stuck out his left arm and then came around with a right hook that dropped Breazeale. He did not answer to the 10 count, making the referee end the contest.

People wonder what’s next for Wilder as the Heavyweight division is still divided. Anthony Joshua, the WBO, IBF, WBA and IBO Heavyweight Champion is set to take on Andy Ruiz Jr. on June 1st, putting all four belts on the line in his American debut at Madison Square Garden. Lineal champion Tyson Fury will have to defeat Tom Schwarz in Las Vegas on June 15th before he can try for a rematch. The heavyweight division has the potential for a superfight on the horizon, but whether that may actually happen won’t be found out for a little more time.

Floyd Mayweather Pulls Off First Round Victory Against Tenshin Nasukawa

Floyd “Money” Mayweather made very quick work of undefeated kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa on New Year’s Eve in a exhibition boxing bout. The scheduled three round contest ended in just one round after Mayweather scored three knockdowns on Nasukawa. The fight headlined RIZIN 14, as part of a yearly tradition to put on a New Year’s Eve event at Saitama Super Arena in Japan. Nasukawa is one of the promotion’s biggest stars, fighting nine times in the promotion before.

Mayweather was the one chasing Nasukawa throughout the fight, but in the first minute he fought relaxed. The American boxer was smiling at times while not throwing a ton of punches. After a minute Mayweather scored his first knockdown. Tenshin got up but seemed worried, as he looked to his corner before the fight resumed. Tenshin really started to get shot around the ring by Mayweather’s punches. A right hook made Nasukawa’s head snap back into the ropes for the second knockdown. A final left hook from Mayweather had Nasukawa tripping on the ropes, with his corner ending the bout.

Confident throughout, Floyd Mayweather did a celebratory dance after the bell. Prior to the fight Mayweather claimed on Instagram that he cashed out at 9 million dollars for his performance. The bout was first announced in early November, with Floyd claiming days afterwards that he would not perform on the show. Sometime in-between then and now he worked things out with the promotion and agreed to fight once again.

The fight headlined a card that had 12 MMA fights below it. In those fights were two championship bouts, with Kyoji Horiguchi winning the inaugural Bantamweight Championship against Darrion Caldwell, and Kanna Asakura dropping her Atomweight belt to Ayaka Hamasaki.

Canelo Alvarez Wins WBA Super Middleweight Title In MSG Debut

Coming off of his second fight in the biggest battle of his career so far, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez didn’t waste time when defeating Rocky Fielding. The Mexican boxer won strictly off of body punches, scoring four knockdowns in three rounds with all of them below the neck. Canelo won the WBA Super Middleweight title in what was his first bout in the weight class.

Heading into the bout the biggest topic of discussion was how Fielding had a notable reach and height advantage. Fielding was, by some, thought of as someone who might survive Alvarez, instead of being someone who could defeat him. Canelo was able to keep the fight close and personal, giving him the advantage throughout. Reach was made irrelevant as they were fighting inside a phonebooth, and height didn’t matter when the focus in the fight was below the head.

In under nine minutes of boxing, the Briton Super Middleweight did have some offense, landing flurries few and in-between. It looked like his punches were weak, as it never put a hiccup in Canelo’s pace. Fielding’s attack might have involuntarily taken a quantity over quality mindset.

Fielding wasn’t billed as a star leading up to the bout, with most promotion being focused on Canelos’ debut at Madison Square Garden. It was also the prizefighter’s first bout that aired on DAZN, a streaming service which has been heavily pursuing combat sports in 2018. Canelo’s last fight before last weekend was for HBO, who closed their boxing operation permanently earlier this month. That fight was a rematch against Gennady Golovkin after reaching a tie in their first encounter. He handed GGG his first loss after they fought for the 24th round when combining both fights together.

Canelo has many options on the table currently, with the biggest of all most likely being a trilogy bout against GGG. The fight is at least the biggest when it comes to public or mainstream interest. With 10 fights left on his DAZN contract, Canelo has many options for his next step.

Jeff Horn Retires Anthony Mundine In First Fight After Loss

On Friday night Jeff Horn received a sudden first round victory against Anthony Mundine who was fighting his retirement bout. Horn improved his professional record to 19-1-1 at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia, on Friday in only one round. For the near minute and a half that the fight was contested the action was very lopsided in favour of Horn. Horn landed a strong overhand right only seconds into the bout. In a corner of the ring Mundane was dropped with a left hook after a body shot. The ref ended the fight after Mundine struggled to stand-up after his first and only knockdown.

With this win Horn became the WBA Oceania Middleweight and WBO Oriental Middleweight champion. The broadcast described this as Horn’s Road To Redemption after getting his first career loss in June against Terence Crawford, losing the WBO World Welterweight Championship. Horn said he “felt really really strong” at Middleweight, as the boxer had primarily fought in Welterweight for most of his career previously. After the fight Mundane seemed confident in his ability, saying “It’s just boxing man, you get caught sometimes.” Mundane confirmed after the fight that this would be his last fight.

Floyd Mayweather Claims He Never Agreed To Fight Tenshin Nasukawa

Days after a press conference in Japan, Floyd Mayweather has claimed that he never agreed to fight on RIZIN’s New Year’s Eve card against Tenshin Nasukawa. On Instagram on Wednesday Mayweather made a lengthy Instagram post where he detailed his side of the story. The full statement reads:

“Now that I am back on U.S. soil after a long and disappointing trip to Tokyo, I now have the time to address you, my fans and the media in regard to the upcoming event on December 31st that was recently announced. First and foremost, I want it to be clear that I, Floyd Mayweather, never agreed to an official bout with Tenshin Nasukawa. In fact (with all due respect) I have never heard of him until this recent trip to Japan. Ultimately, I was asked to participate in a 9 minute exhibition of 3 rounds with an opponent selected by the “Rizen Fighting Federation”. What I was originally informed of by Brent Johnson of “One Entertainment” was that this was to be an exhibition put on for a small group of wealthy spectators for a very large fee. This exhibition was previously arranged as a “Special Bout” purely for entertainment purposes with no intentions of being represented as an official fight card nor televised worldwide. Once I arrived to the press conference, my team and I were completely derailed by the new direction this event was going and we should have put a stop to it immediately. I want to sincerely apologize to my fans for the very misleading information that was announced during this press conference and I can assure you that I too was completely blindsided by the arrangements that were being made without my consent nor approval. For the sake of the several fans and attendees that flew in from all parts of the world to attend this past press conference, I was hesitant to create a huge disturbance by combating what was being said and for that I am truly sorry. I am a retired boxer that earns an unprecedented amount of money, globally, for appearances, speaking engagements and occasional small exhibitions.”

Mayweather’s post on Instagram earlier this week of him wearing a RIZIN MMA and Kickboxing glove has since been deleted. RIZIN, Brent Johnson and Tenshin Nasukawa have yet to put out a statement on the matter.

The mentioned fight put on for a small amount of wealthy spectators is something that has been offered to a boxer before. Heavyweight Tyson Fury mentioned on the “JRE MMA Show” that he was offered a fight on a cruise ship from someone “who wanted to make this a fight exclusive for him and his buddies.”

The ball is in RIZIN’s court at this point as to what they do with their New Year’s Eve show.

Floyd Mayweather and Tenshin Nasukawa To Battle On Rizin’s New Year’s Eve Card

RIZIN’s annual New Year’s Eve just became bigger than ever before. It was announced late Monday at noon in Japan (Sunday night in the west) that undefeated boxer Floyd Mayweather will face undefeated kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa. The exact ruleset hasn’t been made clear as of yet, but at the press conference, which both fighters were present at, Mayweather said that it will be announced in the “coming weeks.”

In mid-September articles said that Mayweather expressed interest in fighting in Japan in what would be a tune-up fight before fighting Manny Pacquiao in a sequel matchup. Less than an hour before the press conference had went live, Mayweather teased his partnership with RIZIN by posting an Instagram photo where he wore a RIZIN MMA glove in his left hand and their kickboxing/boxing glove in the other hand.

Both fighters’ last appearances were in crossover events, with Mayweather participating in the highly lucrative boxing bout with MMA star Conor McGregor. In RIZIN’s promotion Tenshin recently battled MMA star in his own right, Kyoji Horiguchi in a kickboxing bout at RIZIN 13.

RIZIN 14 is scheduled to take place on New Year’s Eve at Saitama Super Arena, the unofficial home for RIZIN events. The rest of the card is set to be announced later this week.

Anthony Joshua Gets Stoppage Alexander Povetkin In The Seventh Round

It was a return to his old self for Anthony Joshua when he closed out his bout against Alexander Povetkin on Saturday. After getting a decision win for the first time earlier this year against Joseph Parker, Joshua was able to finish Povetkin at Wembley. This was Joshua’s third time fighting at the 90,000 capacity venue, last time was when he defeated Wladimir Klitschko in early 2017.

On my personal scorecard the first two rounds went to Povetkin. Joshua wasn’t showing any aggression while Povetkin already looked comfortable. While Povetkin definitely stayed active it was Joshua who took round three and four. Round five was a bit of a bump in the road with Povetkin winning it on my scoresheet. It was tied going into round seven, but because of the result none of this mattered.

In round 7 Joshua started to repeatedly rock Povetkin with strikes. The first time he fell was from a right hook. He had immense trouble standing back up, with half of his torso being out of the ring at one point. It would have been completely justifiable to end the fight here. The ref gave him another chance, only to be floored once again seconds later. Anthony Joshua stays undefeated coming out of the Wembley fight, and definitely stays on many people’s Pound For Pound lists.

My Scoresheet:

Fighter	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	R10	R11	R12	Total
Joshua	9	9	10	10	9	10	W
Povetkin	10	10	9	9	10	9	L

MayMac World Tour Wraps Up On Conor’s Birthday

The final press conference in the four event “MayMac World Tour” wrapped up today in London. The SSE Arena in Wembley played host to the press conference, which was also a birthday celebration for Conor McGregor. McGregor turned 29 today. He mentioned it during his mic time at the press conference, saying that only four years ago he was in London fighting for only 500 people.

Conor wrapped up his speech today by saying this: “But let’s get it straight, the bulls*** is over. In 6 weeks I’m gonna sleep this fool. And when I sleep him, I’m gonna bounce his head off the canvas aswell”. He then threw his mic up in the air.

During Mayweather’s time to talk he emphasized that he will not touch McGregor until the fight. He was very hostile in his speech, calling McGregor many things, including a fa***t. Now I don’t mean to bring my opinion in to this, but it was so uncalled for to use that word. It’s seems a little odd that he hasn’t been called out for this yet, he should be. Maybe some articles will come out about it later though, who knows.

Unlike the past three press conferences, this one was held inside a real boxing ring, with the stage being centred around the fans. After the two exchanged words, the press were open to ask them a few questions. The majority of the questions were asked to McGregor.

No more press between these two have been announced yet, but maybe more will come up once we get a little closer to the fight. The fight is on August 26, on Showtime PPV.

@JackWannan