Mexican legend Erik “El Terrible” Morales has decided not to follow through with a final farewell fight. Morales had to pull out of a scheduled bout earlier this year against Jorge Paez Jr. Morales last fought two years ago when he was knocked out by Danny Garcia. Morales is now turning his attention to training his younger brother Ivan Morales.
Brother Ivan, is a southpaw with a record of 26-0 with 15 knockouts.
Morales had been originally scheduled to to fights in 2013 but pulled out because of various injuries.
“My time in the ring has ended,” Morales said to Boxingscene. “As a (former) boxer my responsibility is to teach the new generations the basic principles to lead a flawless campaign in every aspect, with health being the main thing, and to take care of their heritage. “
“Boxing goes through a transition, but the up and coming idols will reach new generations. Mexcio has great talents and we have to the time to wait for them to become stars.”
Emanuel Augustus, aka Emanuel Burton was shot in Baton Rouge, LA this past Monday night. The shooting took place a few blocks away from a gym where he sometimes trained.
“I just know he got shot in the back of the head,” said Chris Singleton, who trains with Augustus. “And he’s on life support right now.”
Singleton said he went to Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center early Tuesday, where 20 to 30 people held a vigil in support of the fighter.
The Baton Rouge Police Department is investigating the shooting, although the department declined to identify Augustus by name. The department typically does not identify shooting victims unless a victim dies.
The shooting occurred Monday night in the 1700 block of Louisiana Avenue on a portion of the road between North 17th and Brice Streets. The location is only a few blocks away from BREC’s North 14th Street Park, where Singleton sparred with Augustus whenever the popular boxer was in town.
Detectives have not identified any suspects or motives in Monday night's shooting.
A pair of red boxing gloves could be seen sitting next to a plastic bag at the scene of the shooting on Monday night. Detectives took the gloves and the bag as evidence.
Augustus has often been mentioned by Floyd Mayweather Jr as the toughest opponent he's ever faced. He also battled to a Fight of the Year with Micky Ward, the boxer whose life was depicted in the movie "The Fighter".
Police ask anyone with information about this shooting to contact them at (225) 389-4869 or Crime Stoppers at (225) 344-7867.
A bit of a fun post today from a video that is a view months old. The question is what fighter would you take to a bar fight?
Street fight, bar fight or MMA fight, the fighter I would draft first for a “fantasy fight team” would be George Foreman. Foreman was as strong as any NFL linebacker and had Archie Moore trained boxing skills.
I'll give you two “flyers” for my second and third picks because I hate giving obvious answers (I suspect the majority of folks will pick Mike Tyson or Earnie Shavers.)
My second pick would be Jesse James Hughes. Hughes was a rugged welterweight from the 1990s who routinely beat up drug dealers and stole their money. Third pick would be Ray Elson. Elson was a top ten light-heavyweight from the 1970s who was also a champion power lifter. Never heard of someone who was able to be competitive in both boxing and powerlifting before.
Let me know who you would pick.
Famed trainer and commentator Teddy Atlas says he’s not dismissing Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) chances in his fight next month against WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) on November 22nd at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, in Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.
“It could be a tougher fight. I mean, you don’t know what Pacquiao’s going to be when he gets in the ring,” Atlas said to Fighthype.com. “He’s [Pacquiao] a guy with a lot of problems, a lot of distractions. He’s made a lot of money. He’s got a lot of miles on the odometer. He’s only a couple fights removed from being knocked out cold.”
The only threat here is if Pacquiao comes into the ring taking Algieri lightly. Psychologically, he has to realize that a victory here means absolutely nothing. If he knocks Algieri out, fans will dismiss the challenger as being undeserving anyway. If Algieri is even remotely competitive, the rallying cry will be that Pacquiao is slipping.
This fight is the epitome of a no-win situation for the Pacman.
“Algieri wasn’t supposed to get this far. He’s surprised everybody and he’s an undefeated guy,” Atlas said. “He hasn’t learned how to lose, and he’s got nothing to lose. He’s got legs, he’s got youth. He might get Pacquiao on an off night. He’s made us wrong so far.”
I couldn't disagree more with Atlas. He is not mentioning the fact that Algieri was the recipient of one of the worst decisions in recent memory with his disputed victory over Ruslan Provodnikov. Max Deluca, the only judge with 20/20 vision working the Provodnikov fight, scored the fight 117-109 in favor of the Siberian Express.
Algieri really has not done anything to “make us wrong” aside from survive the distance with the hard punching Provodnikov.
Amir Khan is open to facing Floyd Mayweather Jr on potentially the same night that Miguel Cotto may face Canelo Alvarez on May 2nd, 2015.
Cotto vs Canelo would be an HBO deal while Mayweather vs Khan would be on Showtime. Going head to head would seem to be box office suicide but Khan feels otherwise.
“I don’t think it should affect us because, to be honest with you, you’ve got two superstars in boxing,” Khan said to Fighthype.com.
“I’ve always said there’s a hidden market there, the Pakistani, the Indian community that can be huge in pay-per-view buys,”Khan said. “We’ve never had a Pakistani or Indian fighter [fighting on pay-per-view]. So when they see one of their own fighting, regardless if they know him or like him or not, they still would buy the fight because they’ll be like, ‘Look, this is one of our guys.’ So I think when you’ve got two superstars against one, I think you know which show’s going to win and who’s going to get the bad numbers and stuff, even if it’s on the same day.”
As a fan, I want the box office numbers to remain high as it preserves the sport. But I think Khan is fooling himself in thinking that the Pakistani/Indian community can rival the Mexican/Puerto Rican contingent when it comes to pay per view buys. He's the obvious b-side in the match-up and if the cards went head to head it will be Mayweather's fan base that will make the biggest dent in the pay-per-view buys.