Thursday, December 11, 2008

Golden Boy vs. Affliction, More ...

On December 6th Manny Pacquiao defeated Golden Boy Oscar De La Hoya in a 8 round one-sided destruction that forced the 1992 Olympic Gold Medalist to throw in the towel and call it a night. After the horrible performance it is expected for the 35 year old to likewise throw in the towel on his boxing career.

Speaking of Golden Boy, the boxing promotion will be promoting two events on the same night in the same city. A world welterweight boxing title bout between champion Antonio Margarito and Golden Boy boxer Shane Mosley, previously announced for Jan. 24, will now be held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Afflicition's second-ever MMA event, "Day of Reckoning," is scheduled for the same night at the Honda Center in Anaheim.

Affliction recently announced that they signed controversial Heavyweight Gilbert Yvel and set him up to fight Josh Barnett on the 24th. Additionally according to an interview with DREAMFIGHTERS.com, Affliction COO Michael Cohen confirmed that Aleksander Emelianenko will not be fighting at the event. Aleks was however victorious in November defeating Sang Soo Lee. Also, Affliction fighter Dan Lauzon was successful is defeating Justin Hammertrum at a WCF event, and Renato Babalu Sobral became the Strikeforce Light-Heavyweight champion defeating Bobby Southworth this past month as well.

Speaking of Sobral, while he is still scheduled to be fighting on the 24th for Affliction, he is no longer the opponent for Matt Lindland, instead Vitor Belfort will face Lindland. Belfort vs. Lindland was the original plan when the event was scheduled for October 11th.

Andrei Arlovski is looking to make his boxing debut soon after his fight with Fedor Emelianenko, the headline event for "Day of Reckoning". Arlovski is training with legendary boxing coach Freddie Roach who in a video intervew confirmed that Arlovski was twice supposed make his pro-boxing debut, first on the undercard for Juan Marquez vs. Joel Casamayer in September and then on the undercard for Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny
Pacquiao, however due to the rescheduling of Affliction's MMA events, both opportunities were lost. Recently UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva dropped by the Wildcard Boxing Club gym and sparred with Arlovski. Silva still has a dream to box Roy Jones Jr. and Freddie Roach has confirmed that Silva too has been dropping by on occasion for boxing lessons.

No comments: